I’ve previously made a ‘book’, to hold various ephemera, as a leaving present for the minister of my previous church. So when it came to putting together another bespoke binder for prayer flags, a photo book and collected digital photos, I built on my previous project and created a faux leather effect ‘book’.
The ‘book’ is just about the size of a sheet of A4 and about 1½” deep. Constructed from 2mm greyboard and 5mm foamcore board, the canvas cover is painted with a mix of rose madder and burnt sienna acrylic paints to resemble worn leather. The spine text is pressed in with an embossing tool to give an impression of embossed foiling, whilst the frontplate uses careful shading to achieve the same effect.
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Avid readers may remember a week or so ago I made a couple of handmade journals. I’ve taken this one further, and created a ‘colour journal’. With an unashamed plug for all things DecoArt Media, I have used my own photos of their products as a page background, before adding glazes of colour fluid acrylics using various techniques including ragging, baby wipes, brushes and paper towel. Headings used the same colour, just undiluted. Add gesso, pen work and a smidge of gloss and the book is complete.
Over the last two days I thought I’d construct my own art journals. I’ve adapted a slot-and-tab technique to make the inside pages from 160gsm white card. Each journal is A6 in size. The brown has a grungepaper cover with greyboard support behind, coloured with Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain Distress Sprays and sealed with DecoArt Media Soft Touch Varnish. The grey has a wrap around cover in the same card, decorated with DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylics and with a grungepaper and baker’s twine closure. Now all I have to do is fill them 🙂
This handmade book features Kaisercrafts’ fabulous February release of the Now Boarding Collection, and includes more than enough space for your journaling, photos and ephemera. Why not make one before you go on your next holiday and fill it in while you’re there?
Featuring more of the Bella Celebrate Paperz, this mini-album is constructed from one 12×12″ sheet, two 3×4″ project cards, a couple of 3D stickers and die cuts and lots of memories. It’s a hand bound, three signature booklet with the folio tied into the cover using ribbon. With plenty of room for journaling names, dates and recollections, this mini-album could also be included in a bigger layout. Making info follows the gallery.
Some how, in between packing boxes in the studio, completing Day 1 of CC102 and catching up with various admin jobs, I’ve managed to snatch some moments to work on December’s workshop project – a hand made Christmas Art Journal. For more details and to book your place, go to my Workshops Page.
Over the last couple of days I have been putting together this handmade book as a potential project for a gathering of some of the UK course graduates of the Creative Chemistry 101 online course with Tim Holtz. The cover is made from 100gsm paper dragged through Distress Paints, which has the bonus of being waterproof once dry. The lining was done the same way. The pages are folded from A5 printed sheets of paper and stuck down the opening edge with 3mm wide double sided tape to form the tag pockets. They are handsewn for binding before gluing the spine and sticking into the cover.The completed book contains 25 different #5 tags with the instructions, and I probably need to explore a concertina binding on the spine to account for this…
[Book dimensions: 31/4″x51/4″ (8cm x 13cm)]I’m leading a workshop during the afternoon of 22nd October (see About Me page) creating handmade books – I hope that we’ll get to make all three of the samples below:
As promised, here are pics of my handmade travel journal. I decided that I would take an art journal with me on holiday and I’d keep to a plan of drawing/writing daily – after all, I’d have the time! Well, that didn’t quite work out between sun and sangria and nights of cards and local honey rum, but I have finished it:
I’ll be showing the group at the Craft Club on Saturday how to make the journal, and there will probably be a tutorial coming on here later.
