Binding loose journal pages into a book.

Regular readers of my blog will know I love making books as over the years I have shared a few book making techniques. Today I am sharing a video I made recently of the technique I did for my Life Book project in 2012. It is handy when you want to join loose  pages into a book. It is the same hidden hinge method I used in 2012 but I do it a slightly quicker way than I used to so it is a more refined technique these days.

If you want to watch it larger than it appears here go to my You Tube channel where you can view the video larger. I used the technique to finish off my Colour Me Positive 52 week project for this year. I have really enjoyed this project and will continue doing more art journaling next year but I don't know how much I will be able to fit in between the textile projects I want to do.

Here are a few photos from the video to remind you of the steps:

 1. Join your pages together in pairs then glue each pair to the next one to make your book.

 2. Glue a fabric scrap to the spine for strength. Leave to dry overnight.

 3. Make your cover with cardboard and fabric or paper. Ensure the spine is flexible.

 4. Attach the cover and when the glue is dry stitch through all layers to secure the pages inside to the cover. You can use matching thread for stitching or make a feature using glittery thread. It just needs to be a strong thread or even wool. I used 3 strands of embroidery thread.

This is a close up view of the stitching. You could attach beads to the ends of your thread if you like. Thanks for reading my blog and if you have any questions you can contact me via the contact form near the top right of this page or use the comments below.

The final colour me positive pages for this year.

These are the final two pages for my journal.

 Week 51 was inspired by the old keys my husband gave me. I had to stitch them to the page to make sure they didn't fall off. I made a raised frame for the quote so the whole page had the same level of thickness for my book.

 Week 52 is really the title page for the book. I decided I needed one so this is at the  beginning of the book. I collaged down some printed deli papers to my page.

 I wanted to add lettering that I could doodle inside of so I used a stencil for the letters. Firstly I stenciled the words onto tracing paper so I could see if they would fit and where the best placement would be.

 I used this Deja Vue stencil for the letters. It is a little hard to see here but I used pencil for the outlines. I didn't want to use pen because the surface is a little rough and the pen would have got caught on the textured surface and skipped about.

After I removed the stencil I went over the outline with pen. I was a little easier to control without the stencil in the way. 

Next I used India ink to color in the negative space of the page, blending from one color to the next. You can still see the original background in the letters.  At this stage it is still a little messy.

The finished page. I added lines and doodles around the different colors with a black and a white pen. I felt that this brings the whole page together and it is fun to do. In the next post I will share the video of the journal binding.

Some of the last journal pages for this year.

These are the final pages for my year long journal.

 Week 42 is quite a simple page. I used acrylic paint for the background then added gesso stamped circles. I was in the mood for some doodles so I added the quote and then doodled the night away. It was fun to do.

 Week 43 was a fast page. I had previously glued paper napkins to the background so I used 2 stencils for apply paint. When it was dry I used a gold pen to add a quote.

 Week 44 is a collage over a blue painted background. I colored the rainbow with pencils to make it bolder.

 Week 45 is a collage from painted papers. I already had the flower petals cut out so that was the start of the idea for this one.

 Week 46 is yet another collage. I didn't know I had done so many collages this year. I painted all the leaves with one stroke of paint and outlined them.

 Week 47 was an attempt to be a little more free with my style but it is still a fairly neat and tidy design.

Week 48 was inspired by a picture I saw in a magazine. I just loved the black background that made the colors pop. It too has a lot of doodles. 

Week 49 is a workshop I bought from the Cloth Paper Scissors website. It was called Spirograph designs mixed media.

Week 50 is another collage but this one uses a grid format. I did each part of the grid separately and then stitched them all together on my page. I really love this one and can see I will do more things like this in the future.

I hope you enjoy these shared pages. My next blog post will be a brief demo of a doodle page and then I will share the video of how to put these pages together.

52 week Colour me positive challenge.

I am very sorry that I have not been very prompt about updating my blog this year. My husband has just retired and it has been a huge adjustment for both of us. I will be posting a lot more regularly next year but it is likely to be more textile based projects as that is my main focus now. Today I am sharing a few more art journal pages that I have done for the CMP challenge.

 Week 32 is mostly collage. The boat and waves are collage but the sun is painted on. I do like simple, clean design a lot. Not every mixed media piece of art has to look grungy or messy.

 Week 33 was a doodle page. I used spray inks to create the background then just doodled all over it. I do enjoy this type of mindless doodling.

Week 34 was inspired by a clock I saw when I was traveling. It is painted with watercolour and sketched with a black pen. 

 Week 35 is a tile collage. I cut squares of paper out and stuck them to the page. I added a few other items for decoration and drew on some stitched lines. 

Week 36 is my least favorite page this year. I tried to do a textile collage substituting  paper instead of fabric but I don't think it worked as well as it would have if I had used fabric. 

Week 37 is yet another collage, this time from torn papers. I used a previously painted background. 

 Week 38 was inspired by the photo of the cup of coffee. I challenged myself to use really bright colours.

 Week 39 is not really following the prompt. My husband and I went to a flower festival and I wanted to sketch some of the amazing blooms we saw. I colored them with Polychromos pencils.

 Week 40 was done on flocked paper. It is a type of fuzzy scrapbook paper from my stash. I sketched the shoes on a piece of blue painted paper and cut them out for this page.

Week 41 has paper napkins for the background collage. I then stenciled on paint and added cut out numbers and cheesecloth for texture. I have been enjoying the challenge this year, it has got me painting again. In the next post I will share more pages then I have made a video of how I put these separate pages together into a book that I will share soon.