Handmade journal part 3

We're almost there. This is the final part of making your handmade journal. Lets get started.
For the cover you are going to need some cardboard, I used plain corrugated cardboard from an old box but any sturdy cardboard will do. I don't know if things like old cereal boxes would be sturdy enough but you could certainly try it. You also need a piece of fabric to cover the board with. If you don't have fabric on hand don't worry. You have to have an old shirt, or pair of jeans or something like that that would otherwise end up in the rag bin or goodwill box.

For the cardboard you will need to cut 2 pieces that are 1/4" wider and 1/2" longer than your inside pages. If you are making the same size as mine then it will be 4 3/4" x 6". You will also need 1 piece for the spine that is the width of your book when it is all stacked together x 6"

The bottom picture above shows the front and back covers and the pages held together. Measure that to get the width of your spine. I know I'm not holding the ruler right but I had the camera on a timer and I was hurrying to set it up to take the picture. The first time I did this I didn't really care for the way the spine ended up feeling so when I did this book I didn't make the spine quite as wide and I think it turned out better. So what I did was to pretty much just go with the width of the pages plus just a fraction more.

Next cut out your fabric so that it is about 1" wider all the way around. My fabric piece was 12" x 8" (I think) sorry I didn't write it down. You are going to want to space your cardboard pieces out so that the space in between is equal to the thickness of the board you are using. I just took a scrap piece of cardboard and used that as a spacer when I laid this out.

Now it's time to glue. I just used cheap dollar store white glue for this part. I also used a foam brush to spread it on so that I had a nice even coverage all over the cardboard.

Just squirt that glue all over and then spread it with the foam brush. Make sure that you are gluing your cardboard to the WRONG side of the fabric

Once all three pieces are glued to your fabric spread some glue on 2 opposite sides and fold the fabric over to adhere it.  Then do the other 2 sides. When  you are gluing down the last two sides you can fold them in a bit to make more of a mitered corner

Now you are going to glue the pages to the cover. This is another part that I just couldn't get a picture of me actually doing it so I hope that the pictures and my explanation make sense.
In the top picture you'll see that I ran a line of glue down the front and back cover. Then I spread it out a bit. DO NOT GLUE ON THE SPINE.
Next take your inside pages and glue those fabric flaps to the front and back cover centering the pages over the spine. 

Above and below a couple different views so you can see how it's positioned. The bottom picture here is the pages being propped up while this dries. I recommend letting this dry completely before moving on.

Last step here. Finally. You need some paper to line the inside of the cover. I recommend using a cardstock weight rather than plain paper. Cut 2 pieces 4 1/2" x 5 1/2" and score down the middle.

 Spread your glue all over the back of the liner and you are going to adhere one side to the cover and the other side to the first sheet of paper. I found the easiest way to do this was to put the crease in to the space between the cover and the spine then line it up with the first page of the book. After that was attached then I glued down the other side. Here I used my bone folder to make sure that both sides of the liner were adhered well and to take care of any bubbles or wrinkles that might occur

This very last picture just shows me holding the liner and the first page of the book. Those are going to be glued together.

And there you have it. Your book is done. You can decorate the front if you want or just leave it like that. Now go fill those pages.

I hope that I explained all of this well enough but if not you can always email me with any questions you have.

Handmade journal tutorial part two

Welcome back and lets get started on part two of how to make a homemade journal.
Yesterday we finished by getting our 4 folios ready.
Today we need to staple those. If you're lucky and have one of those long reach staples this part should be easy. You are simply going to put two staples in the fold of each folio. If you don't have one of those, don't fret because I don't either.
 Open your stapler up, lay the fold of your folio on a big eraser and staple through the paper into the eraser. I stapled about a 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch in on each end. When you are done simply bull the eraser off.

Now you can flip it over and bend back the ends of the staples. Don't worry too much if you can't get the staple exactly on the fold. I didn't and it didn't seem to matter. Just get it as close as you can. Also the original directions I followed said to staple from the back to the front but I did it the other way around on this second book and that didn't seem to make a difference either

 In the bottom picture above you will notice then when your pages are folded over they are not exactly even. You can leave them like this if you want or you can trim them. I trimmed both of mine and I did it two different ways. The first time I did it with a ruler and a craft knife. You'll need to go slow and make repeated slices through all the layers. The second time I used a guillotine cutter. It's much easier but I wouldn't run out and buy one just for this project if you don't already have one.

Moving right along. Stack your four folded and stapled folios together and get some clips to hold them tightly together. You could also use large paper clips, rubber bands or anything that is going to keep them tight.We are going to be gluing this edge and you don't want any of the glue to seep down in between or your pages are going to be stuck together.  

 The bottom picture above shows that although the folios aren't real tight against each other I was able to squeeze them together while applying the glue. What kind of glue you ask? You have some choices here. I for one chose to use hot glue only because I tend to be messy with white glue and I knew it wouldn't end well. You could use white glue though just be very careful, maybe applying it with a brush.
You are also going to need a strip of fabric that is the same height at your pages and about 5 times as wide. If you are making the same size book as I did your strip will be 5.5" x roughly 1.5".

Now I just could not figure out a way to photograph applying the glue and adhering the fabric strip because using hot glue you need to work rather quickly. But What you do is apply glue to the bound, folded edges of your folios and center the strip of fabric on the glue. The top and bottom picture show the fabric after it has been glued to the edge from two different angles.

Tomorrow we start on the cover and then finish the book. See ya then

Handmade Journal tutorial

Well I spent the majority of my Saturday working on a tutorial for how to make a handmade journal. Because of the large number of pictures I'm going to break this up in to three separate posts.
This is what we'll be making

OK, so are you ready to get started?
First you are going to need 32 sheets of paper. The type of paper you use is up to you. It can be all the same or a variety, your choice. I decided I wanted lined paper and I also wanted a picture on half of the pages. The first thing I did was to print out my pages. Since I'm going to be cutting my 8 1/2 x 11 paper in half I needed to print the same thing on the top and bottom, front and back. When my pages were printed I cut them all in half. This way instead of needing 32 sheets of paper I only needed 16.

 Top picture, the printed pages
Bottom picture, pages cut in half


The next thing you want to do is score and fold all your pages

Now you are going to stack them in to 8 sheet folios. Unfold the pages, stack 8 pages on top of each other and fold them all in half. 

I used a bone folder to make nice sharp creases in my folds. It's helpful but not necessary.

Come back tomorrow for part two.