DIY Art Journals

I do not own a Cinch or a bind it all although there are many a times i find it extremely difficult to get by there but it also gives me the motivation to innovate and and come up newer ways to Craft Necessity being truly the mother of invention...
    So, this is an idea i have been toying for some time now and i do so love the look of tall books... i decided to go right ahead and create some...
    What you need:-

1. a large artist sketch pad
2. really sharp craft knife
3. cutting mat
4. ruler
5. craft glue
6. needle  i prefer a curved one)
7. thread of your choice

Here, is what i started with.

Now all you need to do s determine the width of the first book. I decided to make mine a 4" wide book. which would make it 12"x 4". as the length of the book is 12".

 Also, cut the back cover to size.

For  the front cover i simply cut it at 8" and then folded it over to create a pocket.

Here, is the first one. all done.

For the second its a little complicated not so much if your into Coptic stitching i am recently getting into the groove of it all. But here is how I started.

 Start by scoring all the pages down at the middle. The book had 50 pages so I stacked them in sets of 5 so that way I had 10 signature.

    I punched 4 holes in to each signature. The back cover of the book was a thick chipboard and i had enough leftover so I cut it down to the middle and made two covers for the front and back.
    I also trimmed the signatures to measure 12"x 4".

There are several videos on Coptic stitch binding tutorials so you follow them.. My favorite one is the following 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue52htX3j0k

Here is the final result

 I punched holes to the cover corresponding to the signature and added eyelets . I had also spray painted the covers white.

Here, they are they are perfect for journaling and painting . They can be incorporated as art or dream journals and i also wanna do a lot of painting in them.

Hope you enjoyed. 

If your interested in purchasing my work kindly drop an email.

ashmitaroydas@gmail.com

Ciao

Ash