Today I wanted to share with you the journals I have been making. It seems to be taking up all of my creative time to decide what type of journal I want to make out of the materials I have around the house. The first journal I made was to bind and cover my 29 Faces in 30 Days. I did these faces on loose mixed media paper and now needed to bind them. I had a chipboard cover that belonged to some old book that ….hmmm OK cann’t remember why I had the cover, but anyway, I used it. Cut it to size and decoupaged craft paper over it. Then I decided that because it was for 29 faces it needed a face on it. So drew a face (was able to do that without a lot of stressing because of the 29 faces challenge) and here it is!
I used Coptic stitch to bind this. OK it isn’t perfect, but I really like this type of stitch.
I like the way the book opens up and lays flat.
So now I need to make some art journals to work in. Where do I get my supplies? My daughter is a maintenance tech at the apartment complex we live in. When people move out, they leave all kinds of things. If she thinks I can use them in my crafts, she brings them home. She brought home a sketch book someone had left. It didn’t have the front cover on it, so I cann’t tell you exactly what it was. It was 14″ x 11″ and most of the pages where blank, so I took it apart to make myself a journal. I had 20 sheets which I folded in have and ended up with 5 signatures of 4 sheets each that are 7″ x 11″. Then, OK I spent money. I bought chip board (the cheep kind) for $3.99 to use for the cover. Cut it to size. Covered it with craft paper (I love this paper so much I don’t know if I will embellish it). And sewed it together again using the Coptic stitch. So here it is.
I also put together my little Right Brain Planner that I got from Braveheart.
What’s next? I have a lined book, sort of like a composition book, but larger and with thicker paper.
The top left corner has had coffee spilled on it (since I will be covering it with paint and gesso, I don’t care) and the black covering is peeling. So far I have glued back down the covering and torn out every 3rd page. Yep, I saved those pages and am going to make another journal out of them. 🙂
So this is where I am at the moment. I will share the completed journals as I finish them. I also have two more tablets of paper that my daughter brought me, I think I will make journals out of. Having to use what ever paper is available can be a challenge, but I figure I am very blessed to have these free gifts from the Universe, and I like the challenge of the unknown paper.
Hope you have a creative and beautiful day. Namaste