I love a game board journal. The boards are so rugged and make great notepads.

But have you ever thought about the box the game comes in? The old Monopoly boxes are so great, however, they are also very brittle. I went through a lot of trouble to reinforce and flex this thing a little to get it to work as a cover.

Vintage Game BOX journal cover - 0/5 stars. Do not recommend! However, I was able to fix it up...it only took a few years to do so...

If you'd like to see the playlist of my building of this beast, here is the playlist.

The Cover

I have a YouTube video of how I fixed this cover. It took glue, napkins, tape, and a little homemade stain to grunge it up.

Before the napkin over the top, there were a few years and blemishes but I added a little Walnut Stain that I made from the black walnuts in my yard. I mixed it in with the glue and a touch of water to give the cover a little grunge and hide those blemishes.

The Vision

When I began this, I imagined colorful and joyful images and ephemera bits.

I wanted game ephemera and colorful patterns. I wanted it to be happy with a touch of Whimsical. I do think I achieved that. But, during the ephemera building process of this journal, I had some other ideas come about...

A Scavenger Hunt

I saw a pattern in the items I was adding..a few Bingo cards, a few playing cards, some game money and I decided to create a bit of a scavenger hunt within the journal. It's all written on a handwritten note I've added to the journal to give you some ideas of what to do with it (and what to find in it!)

Interactive journals are a favorite of mine. I like them to be their own entity. Things to find, things to do, things to make you think. There are beautiful images to help inspire you. There are quotes to fuel your writing and make you think and see things in a different light.

Everytime I make a genuine, full-on junk journal, I'm sure to add a few things to give the recipient something to be inspired by. That is how I do "interactive journals."

So this journal has a handful of items for you to find throughout the pages as you go!

The Charm and Spine

I don't often make themed charms for the journals I'm working on but with a game themed cover, I had to use up some of the game pieces and make a spine dangle.

Since I am still organizing and cleaning my art studio, I couldn't find some of my game goodies, but I did find plenty to create a colorful, fun, chunky dangle.

There are Monopoly pieces, checkers, bingo dots, Trouble & Sorry pieces, and other misc game bits from games I've never heard of. I threw in some colorful beads to fill in some gaps and I just went crazy adding to the chain.

 I used aluminum chain and metal where I could in order to keep the weight of it at a minimum.

The spine is beaded with simple acrylic beads to add some beautiful color and hide any binding imperfections. I love all of the colors added to the spine and cover. Its sort of a preview of what's to come when you open the flap!

A Huge Treasure to Have!

There are so many unique pages and ephemera pieces that come in this journal that it's impossible to talk about it all. I have little dangle charms scattered throughout on page corners and ephemera pieces. The closure is adjustable to help with the bulkiness. The inside cover is from a roll of coloring paper so you have some paper to color or paint. I really went all out with this one and I had so much fun doing it.

I'm thinking of which theme to do next....

The possibilities are endless....

So is my stash....

Stay tuned for more fun journals!

~M