House Journal #1 Cover Done

It always takes a while to get the first one done. I decided to put some beaded pins on them so I had to stop, go get some pins and get some beads and get busy. I do have the inside pages of this journal put together but not semi-decorated yet.

What I mean by semi-decorated or semi-finished is when pockets and tags and other embellishments are added to the pages. Not all the pages get this treatment because whoever gets the book will want to personalize it with their own pictures and stuff too. So I always try to leave plenty of room for that.

I did add some pins and crochet border along the roof lines on both books I'm working on. I also softened the green leaf trim with a whitewash. It was just too dark.

Still working on the cover for this one. To add the pins on both, I glued a piece of fabric scrap to the front and made sure it had plenty of room in the center that was unglued for the pin to fasten on.

Next I'll tell you how I did those pins. Lots of people can't figure them out. It's a little tricky to get those beads on the back side of the pin so you can use the front to stick the pin to something, but it's not hard to do.

House Shaped Journals

The start of a new journal has begun. I had to drag out my charms to embellish the tassel of this one. I have the cover done and the signatures sewn in so far.

I dyed the "eggs" on the front with a sharpie marker. They are half round pearl finished beads. The finish was so slick that I had time to disperse the marks before they dried. I have fancy alcohol inks I could have used but my markers were handy and they are alcohol based too.

It's hard to see but the little hummingbird was glued on at the very last minute. I hadn't planned it but it needed something. I did most of the sewing on the front piece before gluing it to the cover.

The most time consuming is always making and sewing the signatures in. Once that's done the rest is pretty much fun. I do like sewing pretty fabrics along the edge of the pages even though it takes me a few hours to get them done.

Last but not least is the ribbon tie. I like silk ribbon the best but I've used seam binding and this twill binding tape too. I haven't made one with torn fabric yet. I tea dyed this one before attaching it.

Looking forward to decorating the pages up but I'm already on to the next. It's another house shaped journal much like this one... but a little different. I like to make at least two of everything because I'm going to keep one of them.

Second Bee Book

I made another bee book. The first one is always the prototype where I make all my decisions and work out the details. This cover is yellow with a gold lame ribbon.

I can pretty much identify all of them by the covers and inside first page. No two are exactly alike. The pages have been stained with coffee and sprayed with ink. I've also stenciled honeycombs in gold on the backgrounds and used splashes of ink throughout the book. A few of the pages are digital from Nik the booksmith at The Booksmith Shop, some are music sheets, some coloring book pages, some from a garden book and some plain and fancy scrapbooking papers too. Some other ephemera is from the public domain and The Graphics Fairy.

This book has a big purple flower. The beautiful roses throughout the book just give the bees a place to land. You can't have bees without a lot of flowers!

Those Domino Books Revisited

I'm really not a collector of anything but dust. But... I admit I've been hoarding these little books for years now and it's time to bring them out, polish them up and see if I can share them. So I brought out three little books and gave them some additional images and pages to make them more interesting and turn them into itty bitty journals.

I was obsessed with making these for a while so I have a lot of them to share. I added little buttons and jewels to the front covers of many of them. The back cover is also a domino. Words or phrases added to the plain pages really adds a lot to their cuteness factor.

There is still plenty of room to write on them if you write tiny. The backs are lined and I added a signature so you can journal. It has pages you can flip! I'm working on a word sheet so you can cut out words to glue on the front pages if you don't want to write in it. It's a cutie patootie little journal that's purposeful now and not just eye candy - although I'm all for eye candy too!

They are pretty thick when they are all tied up on the sides. They are chunky at over an inch. They are little journal books all on their own and they even can stand upright. So cute! Don't know if I want to draw lines on the backs of all of these but those journal pages can be printed off pretty easily. They are held in place like a traveler's journal by elastic in the fold. I use those little transparent rubber bands you get for little girl's hair at the Dollar Tree.

There are no rules in journal making. They can be any size and made of any material. All that is required is that you have a front, a back and some pages to write in. The rest is up to you!

Apparently, I'm still in love with these little books 'cause I'm thinking of making some more of these little journals!

It's All About the Bees

This is my first Bee themed journal book. I've been wanting to make one for a little while now. I started gathering materials together a few weeks ago. I don't really write in journals myself but I wanted to add more writing pages to these as an option.

They are approximately 5" x 7" and feature a hard cover, huge pop-up flower and hand made charms on the binding.

I got my papers from old books, online resources and printed some sheets from the Graphics Fairy.

I drew the petals of this flower and cut it out in layers to pop up. It's hand colored with pastels.

I love to use spray coffee and colored inks sprayed on the pages. I also used stencils on these pages with gold ink and other colors too.

I must have cut out a gazillion roses for this book. Glad I got my Cricut for that. Still, it takes time to load the paper and remove the cutouts from the mats. It would be so much easier if I just made my own paper prints from my roses but I never know where on the page I want to put them. So that's why I use cutouts.

The outside of the book is hard cover. I covered both sides with paper and then added embellishments to it. I reinforced the spine with gold duct tape. I love that stuff. And then added ribbon tassels with handmade polymer beads.

I will be making more of these books just as soon as I get all those roses cut out! LOL!