Tidekeeper’s Cottage Junk Journal

Hey, everyone! Abby Monroe, one of our amazing new Junk Journal Design Team Members, created a fabulous Tidekeeper’s Cottage Junk Journal for us this week. As you know, we feature one new Junk Journal project each week created by one of our creative team of artists. Our Design Team Members select from the 100’s of Vintage Image Bundles on our Premium Membership Site, for their creations, in order to show you beautiful ways to use those images. We hope you will be totally inspired by this series!

Therefore, please make sure you check out the video tour at the bottom of the page…please scroll all the way down to see it. Are you ready to be inspired? I will step out of the way and let Abby introduce herself and tell you all about her incredible project…

Hi, my name is Abby, and I am thrilled to be creating my first journal as part of The Graphics Fairy Design Team. For those who don’t know me, I’m a mixed media artist living on the east coast of Suffolk, England, with my art college sweetheart and our two kittens. I moved just five minutes from the sea in 2020, and it has since stolen my heart, deeply influencing much of my work.

My deep connection to water has only grown stronger over the past four years of coastal living, and my work has become heavily influenced by the stories, mythology, and aesthetic of the sea. I knew I wanted to work with the theme of the sea and water, as I love to base my work around the four elements: water, earth, air, and fire. Exploring the water-themed bundles was a delightful experience. With so much to choose from, I created a folder on my computer to organise them and then immersed myself in them as I began to create the story.

Poetry and words are integral to my creative process, often serving as the starting point for my work. I thought about the layout of the journal and write a list of the different spreads I wanted to feature. This helped me think about the images I wanted to use as there are so many. This junk journal is a window into the magic of water and the endless mystery of the sea. Inspired by the
surreal beauty of a coastal cottage, the courage of the 19th-century paleontologist Mary Anning, the melancholy of selkies, and the quiet rebellion of Victorian women who gathered seaweed, this journal invites you on a journey through time, myth, and memory.

I envisioned the cottage with bare plaster walls encrusted with pearls and shells. I had some French clay laundered linen from Merchant & Mills, left over from making a blind, that I knew I wanted to use. I made the linen into book cloth by ironing on interfacing.

I used two envelopes as the cover, covering them in the linen and then adding the end papers. It measures approx 7.5” x 9.5”. I created 3 signatures of 4 pages using a mixed media cartridge paper which made 42 sides. I stitched the signatures together using kettle stitch and then strengthen the spine with gauze. I made some linen headbands using some natural linen bias binding I had and added a strip of string and double sided tape to glue the edges. On some of the pages I have added silk, linen and lace strips to the edges which creates a beautiful texture and softness to the edge.

The label was made from cardboard stained with walnut ink and I use the words from the end from a Curtain receipt on the website, I also used this later on in the journal to line an envelope.

The window was made from pieces of driftwood I had collected from the beach and a little lead window I had from my childhood dollhouse.

I hand sewed some of my vintage mother of pearl buttons to the shoreline image form the Sea Spray bundle using vintage button thread, I love how they look like shells on the beach glistening in the sunlight.
The journey begins at The Tidekeeper’s Cottage, perched at the edge of the world where land meets sea. This place, made of driftwood and shells, holds the whispers of the ocean and the secrets of those who lived here. The opening page has the words, “It was a lonely and beautiful place,” printed on vellum introducing us to a world where the boundaries between reality and dream blur. I loved using the wallpaper from the Pink, Gold & Green bundle as the end pages, it really set the tone and aesthetic for the whole journal.

The Tidekeeper’s Cottage is a place of stories, memories, and dreams—a fantasy cottage perched at the edge of the land where the tide meets the shore. I used the watercolour image of a cottage from The Lacemakers Cottage bundle printed on watercolour paper. I added vintage lined paper through the journal for adding further journal entries. I collaged a piece of Horn Wrack onto the page which I love. It’s papery texture is so beautiful and when I first started collecting it I thought it was seaweed which it is often mistaken for. I always find it dried and washed up on the beach and I imagine it being something the Tidekeeper often collects.

The walls of the Tidekeeper’s cottage have seen and heard many stories over the years, of Selkies, of fossil hunters, of mermaids, sailers, fisherman, sea shanties. I liked the thought of using wallpaper as the holder of these stories. There are so many beautiful ones on the premium site but I was especially grown to the French Floral Motifs bundle and the Pink, Gold & Green Ephemera bundle. The girl on the page is from the Marsh & Pond bundle and was printed on tissue and then glued onto a letter named Beautiful Script on the site.

Throughout the journal, the sea itself becomes a character, a voice that carries the memories of the past. A typewritten vellum page reads, “I can hear their voices on the waves,” capturing the dreamlike quality of the ocean’s call. This passage, surrounded by the soft colours of the sea in the image of the sea goddess from the Ocean Blues bundle, printed on acetate made me think of being under water looking up.

I printed the passage ‘Like driftwood she was shaped by the sea’ onto one of the Vintage Paperie pages and then added an envelope I made stitching tracing paper and then added a silk tie and image of sea lettuce from the Sea Spray bundle which I printed on watercolour paper and hand stitched to the envelope with some linen twine.

One of the themes of this journal is the connection between the past and the present. The section dedicated to Mary Anning celebrates her discoveries along the same shores, tying the fascination with fossils to the ongoing story of the sea.

In this part of the journal, you’ll find pockets and windows filled with fossil and shell diagrams and notes—a nod to Anning’s legacy and the wonder of uncovering stories from the stones.

I have loved collecting and pressing seaweed over the last few years and I knew I definitely wanted to incorporate it into this journal. I also wanted to share the freedom found by Victorian women who collected seaweed.
Here, these women could take off their shoes, expose their ankles, and walk unchaperoned along the shore. This section of the journal features real pressed seaweeds, carefully preserved and displayed under parchment. The seaweed pages evoke the scientific curiosity of the era while celebrating the quiet rebellion of these women.

The final pages bring the reader back to the timeless nature of water. The sea remembers all—every drop holds a memory, every wave tells a story. The journal closes with a large envelope pocket to hold many more explorations. The last page leaves space for your own reflections, encouraging you to connect your memories to the endless song of the sea.

A Journey Through Time and Tide. ‘The Tidekeeper’s Cottage Journal’ is more than just a collection of pages—it’s an exploration of the deep connections between nature, history, and myth. Each element, from the pressed seaweeds to the hidden selkie’s cloak, invites you to experience the magic of water and the freedom of the shore. Whether you are a collector of stories, a lover of the sea, or a seeker of quiet moments, this journal offers a place to wander, dream, and remember. I have loved making this journal and am currently working on a few more editions with the same theme. These will be available on my website in October. If you’d like to be the first to know when they’re available, then you can join my mailing list at the link below.

TIDEKEEPER’S COTTAGE JUNK JOURNAL SHOW  & TELL VIDEO TOUR

Premium Membership Bundles used in this project:

Pink, Gold & Green Ephemera No.13
Attic Paper Stash 13,11, 10
Mocha & Java 22
Favourite Things Set #2 no.5
Ocean Blues No.1
La Mer No.1, 16,12,11,10,
Sea Captains Voyage No.6,4
Ocean life No.13,19
Sea Spray No.2,22,21,1,7,5,12,3,23,4
Twilight on the Lake No.15
She Sells Seashells
Sea Life Ephemera No.4,5
Marsh & Pond No.10,22
Mermaids Cove No.1,8
Sea Turtle Cove No.11,19,12,7,4,16

I hope you will visit me here:

Abby’s Instagram

Abby’s Website

Abby’s Etsy

Abby

Check out the Graphics Fairy Premium Membership Site HERE!