If you've ever wanted to make mason jar ephemera for your junk journals but felt put off by printables or fussy precision cutting, this video is for you. I'm making whimsical mason jar journaling spots entirely from ripped book pages, file folder, and whatever embellishments feel right — no templates, no rulers required (well, mostly). The result is a small collection of ephemera pieces that sit inside a journal, tuck into a pocket, or clip to a page, each one slightly different and entirely your own.
What we cover
This is a full making session — I work through five mason jar and bottle-shaped journaling spots from first rip to finished piece, then do a flip-through of around 32 pieces I'd made previously, so you can see the full range of what's possible with the same basic approach. Along the way I cover the ripping, the inking, decorating with book pages and found embellishments, adding window cutouts, coloring lids with distress ink, backing onto file folder, and finishing with twine and bows.
What you'll learn
How to rip a mason jar or bottle shape from a book page, including:
- The classic mason jar shape — lid, shoulders, straight sides
- The bottle shape — lid, narrowing neck, rounded body — which gives a more whimsical, irregular silhouette
- How to vary the top and bottom edges (straight-ish with a ruler, or fully uneven for a more organic feel)
Why I back the book page onto file folder before finishing — book pages are fragile, and if you wrap twine around them directly the twine will tear right through. Backing onto file folder first gives the piece the structure it needs, and then you cut around the shape and ink those edges too.
How to create a window cutout inside the shape — make a small scissor cut in the middle of the mason jar, then rip outward slowly and gently to open a window. Ink the ripped edges, find an image from a book page that works behind the opening (I love using a leaf or a small illustration), and glue it in place from behind so just a piece peeks through.
How to color a lid with distress ink and a makeup brush, and why starting off the page matters — if you load your brush and start directly on your project you get a blob of color. Start off the page and move onto it and the color blends in naturally.
Focal point placement and how to create a path for the eye, including:
- Spreading embellishments across the composition rather than stacking them vertically
- Tying twine knots to the side rather than dead center, so the knot becomes part of the visual movement rather than stopping it
- Flipping your piece upside down to spot compositional issues you'd miss right-side up
How to make a label area without a printed label — a small piece of paper with ripped and inked edges does the job beautifully. Layer a sticker or small image on top and it reads as a label.
How to add decorative trim as the lid — trim glued across the neck area immediately reads as the metal lid band, and it anchors the whole design.
Why embellishments need to stay flat — these pieces are going to live inside journals, so buttons, thick flowers, and bulky layers will cause problems. Everything I reach for in this video is chosen with that in mind: flat stickers, pressed flowers, brads, thin lace, small paper flowers.
How to use brads as a decorative detail — poke a brad through a paper flower, push it through the backing, and fold the feet flat. Simple, clean, and it holds without glue.
Tips & gotchas
Ink the edges before you start decorating, not after. Inking first seals and defines the ripped paper edges, and once embellishments are glued down it's much harder to get clean coverage right to the boundary. At the back too — I ink the back edges of the file folder backing as well.
If you're planning to wrap twine around the neck of the jar, wait until after you've backed the piece onto file folder and cut it out. Wrapping twine around just the book page will tear it — the paper is too fragile to take the tension. With the file folder underneath, both layers get wrapped together and it holds fine.
When coloring with distress ink and a brush or blending tool, always start off the piece and move onto it. Starting directly on the paper drops a blob of pigment right where you don't want it. It takes one second to shift your starting point and the result is properly blended color every time.
For the twine knot, tie it to the side rather than in the middle. A centered knot stops the eye. A side knot creates asymmetry and gives you somewhere to place a small embellishment — a bow, a flower, a little brad — that pulls the whole piece together.
When you're not sure about a composition, flip the piece upside down. Imbalances and that one straight line of stickers you somehow didn't notice become obvious when you're looking at it the other way up.
Keep scale in mind. If a sticker or butterfly is genuinely too large for the piece, it can overwhelm everything else — though sometimes a big butterfly on a small fairy jar turns out to be exactly right, which is also a valid outcome.
That's what I ended up with: 32 pieces, all built from the same ideas, none of them quite alike. Some have window cutouts with fairy illustrations behind them. Some have graph paper labels and a single sticker. Some have layers of lace and black baker's twine that make the whole thing pop. Once you know the bones of it, the variations are genuinely endless — and that's what keeps me coming back to this particular shape.
