Process of Creating a Journal - Peekaboo Stylie

This week I have been rather ill which has meant I’ve not made a great deal of things except a few journals for my shop and thought I would share the process through photos (which may mean this become a very long post lol – but you know 1 picture v 1000 words and all that).  Every time I make a journal however the process is a little different as sometimes I start with a particular piece of broken jewellery I may want to use, other times fabric, or may be some vintage ephemera, this time however it was a cardboard box:

Told you, a cardboard box, I hate throwing anything away, even into the recycling when I know I can create something from it.  Due to the length of the box I had two choices, one really long skinny journal, or two smaller journals:

Needless to say which I went for, they ended up measuring 4 x5” with a 1” spine.  I then covered the journals, one in grey leather and the other in a scrap fabric swatch of a birdie tree:

Next I picked the technique I wanted to use for the binding, which I found in Alisa Golden’s Making Handmade Books (which is not the best book on bookbinding I have come across, as the majority of it is made up of cards and a huge amount of accordion card/books, that are NOT bookbinding techniques at all – but it’s good if you’re just starting making books and as I’ve got the book there are a couple of techniques I’m going to try):

I didn’t stick exactly to the book with the preparing over the covers or button closure they use, I just used the bookbinding technique itself.   So I cut holes in the covers, and lined them with paper:

Then I cut the paper to size (If you try using a cardboard box as the cover make sure you measure the spine to see how many signatures should be included):

Then I chose the vintage ephemera (as I always include for interest):

Prepared the signatures:

And bound them into the covers with waxed linen bookbinding thread:

Then I added embellishments & closure systems, I think the cut out spine looks really nice with the ephemera cover signatures peeking through:

Here are some other journals I have previously made using the ‘cardboard box for covers technique’ to give you some idea of different bindings:

Finally here's a peek of the other journals I have made over the last few days, all are/will be available in my shop:

See told you it would be a long post lol hope you enjoyed and have a good week :)