Journal - Inside Pages and First Journal Entry

We are now going to talk about the inside of the journal.  If you missed the earlier explanation and would like to catch up on what I'm talking about, just click here: Journal Cover

Supply List:
Paper for random pages inside of the book (I used the K&CO, Hot Off the Press, and DCWV mentioned in the previous post)
Ribbon to match your paper (I used several different types from Offray, Ribon Trends, Essentials, and The Ribbon Boutique)
Adhesive - ATG
Ink Pads

Tools:
Paper trimmer
Corner rounder

Lets get started:
To begin, lets discuss the ribbon at the binding of the book.  Though quite pretty, this ribbon also serves to reinforce the book binding.  As items are added to the book, the binding may begin to weaken and break apart.  To reinforce the binding, open the book to the center where you can see the seam from the paper being sewn to the binding.  Take a length of ribbon and tie it completely around the book, by making a knot at the top of the spine.  Trim ribbon ends to your desired length.  Add 5-6 more ribbons, spacing throughout the book.  You want to use thin ribbon.  I added a total of 7 different coordinating ribbons to add interest and texture to my cover.  I then tied or pinned different Tim Holtz embellishments near the ends of 6 of the ribbons  as mentioned in the previous post.

Inside pages -

At random intervals throughout the book, I adhered pages of scrapbooking paper to the notebook pages using my ATG.  For the size of my composition book, I cut each page at 7 1/8" wide to 9 9/16" tall.  I also rounded the outer edges of each page to match the notebook pages.  Be careful to leave about 1/4" margin to the binding edge each time you add a page to help preserve the binding.  If I added a page to one side of page, I also added a separate piece of scrapbooking paper to the other side.

Once the scrapbooking paper was added, I then began preparing my other pages to be ready to journal.  I did this by first folding and crinkling the blank pages between each set of scrapbooking pages.  You can see the crinkled pages above.  I then began using ink pads in various colors and inking those pages.  On some pages, I inked the whole page and on others, I just inked the outer edges.  This creates neat effects to the pages.  Every 4th section, I chose to leave the paper un-wrinkled and to just ink the edges.  This helped decrease the bulk added to the book by the crinkling.

I started this journal at January, 2011, even though it is already June.  I plan to highlight special events and not necessarily to journal everyday.  I have a few events I plan to add to my journal.  I may not necessarily share those on the blog each time.  However, I plan to show some of the first page.  I will also show various pages as they are added when there is a crafting technique or idea to show.

Page 1:

On this page, you can see that it was inked all over with a brown ink.  Though it is difficult to see, I also used a date stamp to stamp the month and day in the upper right hand corner, handwriting the year below the month/day.  I then wrote my journal entry over the inking.  To decorate the bottom of the page, I found this little embellishment kit in my stash.  I believe it came from a Creating Keepsakes kit I bought a few years ago.  The saying was inked around the edges and all was adhered to the page.

Thanks for stopping by!