Master Board Book No. 1 – Handmade Junk Journal Master Board & Ephemera Book

From the Hidden Drawer → Master Board Books

A Book Made to Become Something Else

Keep it as a book or cut it apart—22 thick handmade master-board pages created for writing, collage and one-of-a-kind junk journal ephemera.

Some books are meant to be carefully kept on a shelf.

This one was made with the possibility that someday, someone might take a pair of scissors to it.

Master Board Book No. 1 began with an old advertising booklet and grew, layer by layer, into a thick collection of handmade junk journal master boards.

Bits of found paper were joined by vintage pieces, upcycled papers, hand-dyed papers and miscellaneous scraps that had been waiting for another life. They were torn, cut, layered and glued together in the traditional master-board style, allowing colors, patterns, printing and little unexpected details to meet across each page.

The result is not neat or perfect.

It isn't supposed to be.

It is a book filled with handmade surfaces waiting to become whatever comes next.

About This Book

Master Board Book No. 1 is a one-of-a-kind handmade master board book created by Butterfly in the Attic for junk journaling, collage, paper crafting and creative reuse.

The book contains 22 pages, with each page intentionally created to offer two different kinds of working surfaces.

One side is the decorative master-board side, constructed by gluing together many individual pieces of paper. Materials vary from page to page and include found papers, upcycled papers, vintage pieces, hand-dyed papers and other miscellaneous paper treasures.

Turn the page over and you'll find a quieter side with more open space for writing or further embellishment. These sides are created from a combination of hand-dyed papers, bubble papers and upcycled packing papers.

Because multiple papers have been layered onto the original pages, the finished pages are wonderfully thick and substantial.

That makes them especially useful as bases for handmade ephemera.

Keep the Book—or Take It Apart

There really isn't a wrong way to use this book.

Keep it intact and it can become the beginning of a wonderfully chunky junk journal. Write on the quieter sides, add photographs, pockets, tags, stitching, stamping and more collage, and let the existing master boards become the backgrounds for your own story.

Or...

Take your scissors to it.

The thick decorative pages can be cut into journal cards, tags, pockets, tuck spots, belly bands, specimen cards, labels, collage pieces, clusters, tabs and all sorts of handmade ephemera.

Even the cover can be cut apart and reused.

You might use an entire page as the foundation for another journal project or cut one master board into several smaller pieces and let each become something entirely different.

This book was intentionally made to be useful.

So please don't feel that it is too precious to cut.

Traditional Junk Journal Master Boards

The decorative sides of these pages were created using a traditional junk journal master-board process.

Rather than beginning with a single sheet of decorative paper, many smaller pieces are layered and glued together to create a new surface.

Some papers are found.

Some are vintage.

Some have been rescued from packaging or other materials that might otherwise have been discarded.

Others have been hand dyed or simply came from the wonderful accumulation of miscellaneous papers that seems to happen when you make things for long enough.

Because of that, no two pages are alike.

Look closely and you'll find changes in color, texture, pattern, printing and age as you move across the surfaces.

And once you begin cutting them apart, entirely new compositions appear.

The Quieter Side

While one side of each page is busy with layered collage, the reverse was intentionally kept quieter.

These surfaces include combinations of hand-dyed papers, bubble papers and upcycled packing papers, giving you room to write while maintaining the handmade character of the book.

Use them for journaling, dates, quotations, memory keeping, stamping or additional collage.

And if you're cutting the book apart for ephemera, those quieter backs can be especially useful—they give many of your finished pieces a surface where you or the eventual journal owner can still write.

Wonderfully Thick Pages

All those layers of paper add up.

The pages in this book are substantially thicker than ordinary journal pages, which is one of the reasons they work so beautifully as ephemera bases.

Rather than beginning with a thin sheet of paper and building it up yourself, much of that work has already been done.

Cut a section from a page and you already have a layered foundation ready for additional ink, stitching, stamping, labels, fibers, images—or nothing at all.

Sometimes the master board has already done enough.

About the Shape of This Particular Book

This book began as an upcycled Sam's Club advertising booklet.

As layers of paper were added to both sides of the original pages, the increasing thickness naturally changed the way the book closes.

In the center of this particular book, the pages extend outward approximately ¼–½ inch farther than some of the surrounding pages because of that accumulated thickness.

This is visible in the photographs and is part of the handmade, upcycled construction of this piece.

It does not have the uniform edges or perfectly even profile of a commercially manufactured book—and it was never intended to.

Approximate Size

10½ inches tall × 6 inches wide × 1⅛ inches thick

Please keep in mind that this is a handmade, heavily layered piece, so measurements are approximate.

Your Master Board Book Includes

• 1 one-of-a-kind handmade Master Board Book
• 22 thick, layered pages
• Decorative traditional master-board surfaces
• Quieter reverse sides suitable for writing
• Found paper
• Upcycled paper
• Vintage paper pieces
• Hand-dyed papers
• Bubble papers
• Upcycled packing papers
• Miscellaneous collected paper elements
• An upcycled original booklet base
• A cover that can also be reused as ephemera
• Approximately 10½ × 6 inches
• Approximately 1⅛ inches thick

Every page was individually assembled and will contain its own combination of papers, colors, textures, marks and irregularities.

This is the exact one-of-a-kind book shown in the listing.

A Note About Handmade & Upcycled Materials

Please expect imperfection.

These books are made from found, vintage, hand-dyed and upcycled materials rather than new, commercially uniform papers.

You may find wrinkles, variations in color, visible printing, uneven edges, overlapping papers, marks, differences in texture and other evidence of both the handmade process and the previous lives of the materials.

The pages themselves are hand-built master boards, so variations in layering and thickness are part of their character.

If you love perfectly matched edges and factory-produced paper, this probably isn't the book for you.

If you love discovering a tiny fragment of old printing beneath another layer of paper and wondering where it came from, you'll probably understand exactly why I saved it.

Made With Journal Makers in Mind

This collection was created especially with junk journal makers and paper artists in mind.

You can certainly keep the book intact and make it your own, but it was also designed to provide a generous collection of handmade material that can be incorporated into other creative work.

Cut it apart.

Punch shapes from it.

Make tags.

Build pockets.

Add stitching.

Ink the edges.

Layer more paper over it.

Use a tiny piece in a cluster and save the rest for another day.

Or turn the entire book into a journal.

The next chapter belongs to you.

Perfect For

Junk journal making, handmade ephemera, master board projects, collage, altered books, journal cards, tags, pockets, tuck spots, belly bands, mixed-media projects, paper crafting, creative reuse, slow crafting and anyone who keeps a box of interesting paper scraps because of course you're going to need those someday.

It would also make a wonderfully unusual supply for a journal maker who enjoys incorporating handmade and one-of-a-kind elements into their own finished journals.

From the Hidden Drawer

Master Board Book No. 1 comes From the Hidden Drawer, where small handmade paper collections, journals, useful scraps and curious little things are gathered together.

These Master Board Books celebrate something I've always loved about junk journaling: materials don't have to begin as something precious to become something worth keeping.

Found papers, discarded packaging, old printed pieces and hand-dyed scraps can all have another chapter.

Sometimes several.

No two Master Board Books will be exactly alike. Their sizes, page counts, papers, colors, thicknesses and original book bases will vary depending upon what was waiting to be rediscovered.

Thoughtfully created by Butterfly in the Attic.