June 3: A Little of This, A Little of That along with a Dash of Crafting

Past it's prime but still beautiful!

No rain today and the temperature is only going to reach the mid 70's.  My kind of day.   So we have decided to rent a couple of pods for the time being and pack at our leisure rather than trying to pack in one day and unpack the next.  

Still no luck on house hunting...we are going to look at several tomorrow.  Hopefully there will be one that fits.  Time is getting short.  Once a bid has been accepted, it still takes 60 to 90 days to get all the ducks lined up in a row!

Today I am going to share how to add a cover to the mini journal pages.  We ended by clamping the pages together with a bull clip and gluing the spine...

Take a piece of heavy decorative paper about five times the width of the book front cover and a bit taller that the pages.  You will also need a narrow piece of decorative paper to make the closure for the journal...

Place the journal pages, glue dried and spine down on the middle of the inside of the cover and mark both edges of the spine.  Bend the cover at those marks.  Place the journal pages inside with the spine against the spine area of the cover and mark the edges of both sides.  Take out the journal pages and bend the cover at those marks.  The flaps left over at each end will be glued down inside the cover so cut them at appropriate lengths.  If you want the journal to hang around your neck or as a bracelet, take a small piece of wire and twist as shown, then glue down to the spine of the cover...

Using tacky glue, apply to area as shown...

Now place the journal pages down, with the last single page at each end only pressed into the glue...

Finally, apply tacky glue to the entire flap at both ends and press down over the glued down single pages of the journal to finish and let dry...

To make a closure, cut a strip of the decorative paper about 3/8 inch wide and long enough to go around the book.  Using tacky glue, glue it to one side of the journal...

Cut another strip from the decorative paper a little less than twice the height of the book.  DO NOT GLUE TO THE FRONT OF THE BOOK!  Bend the strip so that you can glue it to the inside cover as shown...

To fasten, slip the end of the strip glued to one side of the cover under the strip glued to the inside of the other cover as shown...

To make a necklace or bracelet, add a chain to the wire piece that you added when gluing the journal pages to the cover...

Once you make one, you will want to make more.  And you can vary the size easily.

I did not decorate the pages, but that is easy to do especially with small stickers and washi tape.  Enjoy.

Have a great weekend...

Talk with you on Monday with a new focus...