Hello everyone, you might remember that in a recent post I showed how to use chipboard elements as stencils. So today I thought I would make a mini art journal using a chipboard set that is designed to be used for something else, and use some of the stencilled prints to decorate it.
To make the small journal, I am using the chipboard set called Altoids Book Cover C2F and some of the stencilled paper from my previous chipboard printing session. I don’t have access to any Altoids tins so I wondered what else I could use this chipboard set for – the answer was easy when I looked that the pieces, so I decided to make a small mini art journal. So when I made all the gel prints, I also used the chipboard stencil in two other ways – firstly with paint and a sponge:
Then with texture paste (if you haven’t read the original post, I already sealed the chipboard):
So I ended up with these two prints in addition to my gel prints. The top one was just the right size to make my mini book.
I cut down the top print down to fit both sides of the book cover leaving a little extra on the side for folding.
I used PVA glue to adhere the pieces to my cover leaving a small gap in between so that my journal would lay flat and also close properly.
Here’s how it looks on the outside with the paper overlapped on the spine.
For the inside, I repeated the process using a leftover piece of watercolour paper already painted. This time I used three separate pieces to cover the chipboard pieces.
Then I took the texture paste print and cut a piece to fit on the spine with a little extra to wrap around to the front cover to make it more interesting. I cut along the wavy line as I thought that would look nice on the front of my book. This was easy to cut through with scissors.
This cut piece was slightly longer than needed for the spine, so I positioned the shaped side where I thought it looked best and glued it down. Once that was dry, I glued the rest to the spine making sure that I could still open and close the book properly.
I used wax to colour the edges of the book, but it could also be done with paint.
For the pages, I used watercolour paper (9.5 x 12.5 inch size) to cut 6 x 4 3/8 inch pages that I folded in half.
I cut 14 pages in total to make 7 signatures. There are a number of ways to assemble the inside of the journal. The signatures could be stitched together, or they could be held in position as in the photo below and glued together, then glued to the spine. Or they could be added to elastic cords in a traveler’s notebook style.
Since I wanted my pages to be removable, so I could work in them flat, I went with option three and used elastic cords to hold my pages in place.
For this size book, these hair elastics are the perfect size!
Slide the pages through the elastics and the mini journal is ready to use!
The pages can be removed to work in them and returned to the journal when finished.
To finish off my journal I added another hair elastic to hold it closed and attached a tassel leftover from another project.
Now I have a tiny little art journal that I can carry around in a handbag or pocket and add and remove pages as needed. Thanks for making it all the way to the end. Let me know what you think in the comments!
Project Recipe:
For the art journal: Altoids Book Cover C2F, PVA, wax, hair elastics, watercolour paper
For the stencilled paper: PE126ES Seaweed Circle, PE129ES Oceanic, acrylic paints, water soluble crayons, matte medium (see other post for how-to)
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