Circa 1969

It was December of 1969 that my family traveled to Mexico for Christmas. Several years earlier we had a foreign exchange student staying with us and it was his family that we were going to spend the holiday with. It was, even for a child of 7, a wonderful experience. I do however think that it is something that I could appreciate much more now. Some of the sites we saw are still so clear in my mind. We spent a day touring the Mayan ruins, another on the sandy white beaches of our hosts beach house.
I still have two souvenirs that my parents bought for me on that trip. One is a doll who has not been preserved too well but technically is still in one piece. The other is this

  I don't recall exactly where we bought this or what even made me choose it. Makes no difference because every time I look at it I remember the trip. If only for a moment or two, it takes me back to 1969 and the Merida Yucatan Peninsula

TGIF

Even though this has been a short work week for me, it's been a busy one and I am so glad that it's over with. I doubt that the weekend will have much time for rest and relaxation however. So many things on the agenda and I don't hold much hope for getting to all of them.
I didn't spend much time last night making the rounds to see all of you but I promise to catch up soon. It was just one of those evening when sitting in front of my computer was not very appealing. I'm having a lot of those lately.
Recently I have been reading a lot about the benefits of vitamin D-3. On a recent shopping trip I wandered down the vitamin isle in hopes of finding the fountain of youth in a bottle. Obviously there is no such thing. I did however pick up a bottle of these.

Contains red wine extract. So now I can have my daily serving of wine in the morning before heading off to work. I like that.
How sad is it thought that  I've gotten to the point where I'm buying things that support key areas of health that often decline with age?

I think I shall just ignore that part and focus on the red wine extract. Cheers!

What's cookin'

Hey good lookin', what ya got a cookin'

Hows a bout cookin something up for me?

I'll just take a little nap while I wait.

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.