About our journals: making them and their covers

You don't need a fancy journal to start journaling. I always encourage people to start with a book that's simple, affordable and not precious so you'll feel free to experiment without worrying about results. I remember part of my years ago hesitation about making any kind of art was that I was going to "ruin" expensive materials and have nothing worthwhile to show for it at the end.

Lined (or blank) exercise books intended for high school students are perfectly useable, although the paper is quite thin so you may have to glue two papers together to make them strong enough to work on. While it's true they're *never* going to be the best for watercolour paints, in the beginning, they're perfectly acceptable for collage and acrylics, particularly if you keep your paint application on the dry side - scraping, stenciling and dry brushing, for instance.

The journals I've made for you in class are stitched together in the simplest way possible. I wanted to show you how easy it is to make your own journals in the future. Not that you have to, but you might.

The spine is reinforced with duct tape because losing your cover is the last thing you want. The inside pages are 11” x 17”, folded to 8.5” x 11”. Every folded sheet gives you 4 pages to work on ~ lots of room. The paper is text weight, which is heavier than usual photocopy or printer paper.

I call this method I’ve developed “Vampire Binding” since it uses pairs of holes punched close together. One pair of holes more or less in the middle, plus two more pairs of holes near equally spaced along the book’s length.

Using waxed thread, go in and out through each pair of holes twice, then tie a double knot with the two thread ends and trim to about 1/2”. If you start stitching from the inside of the journal, the knot and threads ends will be inside the book. If you start from outside, the knot and threads ends will be on the outside. Your choice!

Your journal is equipped with pockets. A skinny one in the front to tuck in a pen or pencil so you can take your journal with you every day. Highly recommended.  And a BIG pocket in the back for things you like but haven’t decided how to use yet. Feel free to fill it up with interesting stuff you find while venturing out in the world.

Class handouts have been designed to go straight into your journal. On the back of each page, there’s an edge marked: “Apply glue or double-sided tape.” (except for handout page 7, see below). Place the taped/glued edge right next to the spine inside your journal. Don’t worry about being perfectly straight, you can always trim off any edges that stick out, or even fold the pages in.

Page 7 will always be single-sided so you can cut it up and include all it’s bits and pieces wherever you like in your journal. I like to colour them (since they’re in black and white) and use them in magazine image collages.

Here's a list of my favourite basic tools I use in journaling. I recommend gathering your basic supplies in something small and portable so you can take your journaling outside on nice days. Journaling in the outdoors (weather permitting) can take your mind away from the everyday and open you up to new ideas.

• 2-sided tape (sookwang), gluestick (UHU), spray glue (3M Super 77) 
• Scissors and pinking shears 
• Random lined & graph papers, etc. 
• Blank journal ~ usually handmade with recycled papers. I don’t worry about paper quality because I usually collage on top of them anyway 
• Gesso ~ white to start, but you’ll want to play with black eventually as well. 
• Acrylic paint, stencils, scrapers, sponges 
• Washi tape and masking tapes 
• Found papers: magazines, old text pages 
• Napkins and paper towels 
• Watersoluble Crayons (Caran d’Ache Neocolors II) plus waterbrush (Pentel) 
• Multi-colour pencils and crayons (several colours built into one crayon) 
• Alphabet letters, both as rubber stamps and stickers ~ great for adding words. 
• Rubber stamps ~ the more non-specific the better, like textures and borders. 
• Self-healing cutting mat (at least 12” x 12”) 
• Quilting ruler 
• X-Acto knife

Now - on to the covers!

Don’t fret over your blank white covers. Here are some things you can do to make it your own:

Acrylic paint + old gift card: Scrape a pea-sized blob of paint super thin so it dries fast.
If the colour isn’t vibrant enough, add more layers. Start with the lightest colour first! 

Acrylic paint + stencils + makeup sponges: Less paint = a crisper stencil edge.
Dab the sponge till it's almost dry on a piece of scrap paper so you don’t use too much. 

Duct Tape ~ lots of colour options and it makes your journal super durable for portability.

Zentangle all over it with waterproof pens, like Sharpies. 

Then add colour if you want.

Collage ~ use magazine images. Rotate them to focus on colour and texture and not what it “is”. This cover was made from ads in a new age magazine freely available at community centres.

Colouring Book Page ~ glue on either an already coloured or a blank page and then colour away. 

Fabric ~ Use double-sided tape along all the edges for extra strength, wrapping around
the edge to the inside. This cover is made with a section of an old prayer flag I was given.

Crumpled Brown Paper Bag + Dragged Inkpad ~  My new cover for this year! I started with  crumpled brown bag paper. To stick it on, I started with double-sided tape along the edges and glue all over the middle. Then I added a mandala from a colouring book, plus one of the quotes from the handouts and a HELLO name tag stamp, to which I added the year numbers. One of the cool things about crumpled brown paper is the more you use it, the more it feels like leather.

Here are your next pages of handouts:

Well, that should get you started on your journal covers ... more to follow in the next post.

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