Handmade Journal Ideas Part 3: Hand-Stitching & Beading for Mixed Media Collage

Welcome to Part 3 of the Handmade Journal Series, where we'll explore how to incorporate stitching and beads into journal pages.

In this tutorial, I'll show you how to work with positive and negative leaf shapes, stitch French knots, add decorative beads, and combine these with pen work to create beautifully simple, textural designs. We'll also look at a lovely, easy technique for framing a leaf print that ties everything together.

This instalment builds on our earlier work in part 2, where we used a pyrography tool to create our leaf shapes. Now, we'll add even more texture and dimension t0 make your journal pages feel wonderfully rich and tactile.

If you've never tried adding stitching or beadwork to your collage pages before, you're in for a real treat! I hope you'll find plenty of ideas and inspiration to try out in your own journals.

Let's get started.

Watch the full video tutorial here:

Before we get started, let's have a quick look at a few of the pages we created in part 2.

I absolutely love that inky blue background peeking out through the cut-out areas - it gives such a lovely contrast. I'm going to leave that just as it is.

And when you flip it over, you can see a different part of the design coming through, which I really like as well.

Now, when I turn to the next page, you'll notice it's slightly shorter. I do sometimes enjoy having pages in different sizes, but I don't think it quite works here.

My idea is to add these leaf shapes, including this natural-toned one we created with the pyrography tool - I think it will look lovely against the robin's egg blue background.

I'll glue it down to the page and then do a bit of stitching. It's tricky to stitch neatly when the page is already in the book, so I'll work on it separately, and attach it once it's done.

The first step is to glue this top page with the leaf cut-outs onto the background page.

I set the leaf aside, flip the page over onto a clean sheet of paper, and apply adhesive all over the back with my glue stick. Then, I carefully place it on top of the base page.

With another clean sheet of paper over the top, I gently press it down with my hand to make sure it bonds well.

Then I'll repeat the process with the leaf shape - glue on the back, position it just where I want it, and press gently to fix it in place.

Part 2: Stitching & Beadwork

Now for my favourite bit - the stitching! I've gathered my sewing supplies: thread and beads in colours that complement the artwork, along with a needle, sewing scissors, a needle threader, and a seam ripper.

I choose a silvery-coloured thread - I really like this colour against the page.

Next, I use the seam ripper to separate the strands so it's not quite as thick - about 3 threads' thickness is perfect.

Now I'm going to stitch some French knots onto the page.

A French knot is a decorative embroidery stitch and creates a small, raised dot. It adds a lovely textural detail to your work - perfect for little accents or clustered patterns.

I use my needle threader (which is absolutely essential if you're like me and needing to wear glasses!)

Once the needle is threaded, I double the thread up and tie a neat knot at the end.

Now, I gently insert the needle from the back of the page and pull the thread through.

I bring the needle through from the back of the page. Holding the threat taut, I twist it twice around the needle.

Then, with the thread still taut, I push the needle back down into the paper, just beside where it came up.

Keep a little tension on the thread as you pull it through - and there's your French knot!

Repeat the steps again 2 more times, creating another French knot right next to the first one, until you have 3.