Journal with Handmade Papers

By: Carole Lassak
Recently, I needed a quick, but impressive, gift. So, I turned to my growing collection of handmade papers. I made this gorgeous journal in just over one hour!! So easy.

This comes as a complete photo album kit from Arnold Grummer's, but I made a few personalizations :)

I'll share the basic assembly instructions, and you can use chipboard and papers to your own dimensions. You will need chipboard, cover paper, liner paper, paper for filler pages, your choice of embellishments.
Note: Just so you don't think that you teleported to another blog, the pictures showing assembly feature different papers than the finished journal.
Chipboard cover and end boards with cover and liner papers.
Completely cover the chipboard pieces with adhesive. I used Elmer's Craft Bond glue stick. Lay the cover and end boards on the reverse side of your cover paper, leaving a 3/16" space between the boards. This allows the finished book to open easily. My cover papers were 1/2" larger on all sides than the cover and end boards plus the 3/16" space.

There are different methods for mitering the corners, but I have success folding the cover paper at an angle at the corner, and gently scoring with my fingernail along each side. Then, I unfold the miter and put just a tiny bit of glue in the corner and re-position the folds. Repeat for each corner.

Add adhesive to the exposed margins of the cover paper, and glue the long sides over the chipboard. Then glue the short sides. Completely cover the reverse side of your liner paper and position over the cover and end boards. My liner was 1/4" smaller on all sides than the cover and end boards plus the 3/16" space.

Here's were those personalizations come in. I used coleus leaves that I dried using Arnold Grummer's Garden Press to embellish the cover along with the flowers, letters, and silk ribbon that were included in the kit.

I used a Crop-a-dile to punch hole in the end board section of the front and back covers and the filler pages. I selected my own handmade papers for filler pages. Here you can see the handmade paper pages.

I'm thrilled with the way this quick gift turned out. Can't wait to give it away!! 

Don't forget to take advantage of Arnold Grummer's October sale!! Just enter the promo code Oct20 for 20% off your entire order.

You can see more projects on my Create & Craft blog.

Carole—Find me on Google

Comments

  1. This is beautiful Carole! Love the colors you chose and the design, Wonderful!

    ReplyDelete

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