BITS: It's Spring! DIY Journal

Journalling more was on my new years resolution list (are we still allowed to talk about our resolutions? ha). Although I haven't journaled as much as I hoped, the year is young and some is better than none.

For my journaling goals, I decided to split my year into 4 sections based on the seasons. I feel like I organize my brain better seasonally rather than monthly, or even yearly. The first journal I made was my winter journal. It was black leather and had an envelope style and I printed out pages to create different sections to the journal. I liked it, it was functional, but there were certain things I didn't like so much. The string closure was sort of annoying, if I was to recreate that journal I would for sure use an elastic to create a stretchable closure. I liked the sections, but I felt pressure to build on all sections at once to keep balance in the journal (OCD much?) and that made me avoid writing at all, which is not at all what I want.

For this journal I kept the pages blank, freestyle. I am sometimes better with freestyle and I find springtime so invigorating and inspiring that I think I will like this freestyle method, although I may create some dividers just to give a bit more organization to the book (I can plan and journal in different sections.. but I will try to let them each grow independently and naturally this time).

SUPPLIES:

-Cereal Box (or other cardboard of that thickness)

-Contact Cement (and an old paintbrush to spread it around)

-Fabric (I used three different fabrics, grey wool for the outside, Patterned cotton for the spine and yellow cotton for the lining)

-Paper

Optional: -Strap of leather (or other strong fabric) for closure

-Paint (to paint said closure)

-Button or snap (or both, also for said closure)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Prepare all your pieces. Cut your regular sized papers in half so they are 8.5"x5.5", cut your cereal box into two pieces 9"x6"+1/2" past their natural fold for the spine. Lining fabric: 9"x12.5", Outer fabric: 11"x14.5", Contrast spine: 5.5"x11". If you are using a closure, I made mine 9" x 1" and painted it gold. Before the gold paint dried I stamped the letters S P R I N G out of the paint with ordinary rubber stamps.

2. Glue the Cardboard together at the spine. And let it dry.

3. Cover the inside of the cardboard cover in glue and apply the lining fabric by starting at one side and rolling the fabric out to cover the inside. Fold the book and unfold it while it's drying to make sure it fits into the crease properly. Let it dry.

4. Cover the outside of the book in glue and cover with outer fabric, one side at a time, folding the book shut in between the two sides so that the fabric wraps nicely around the spine of the book. Allow it to dry.

5. Glue the seam allowance of the contrast fabric over to give it a clean finish. Let it dry.

6. Glue the contrast fabric onto the outer fabric, again one side at a time to wrap around the closed spine. If you are using a closure, you may insert this into the contrast fabric and glue it in place.

7. Glue around the perimeter of the outer fabric from the inside of the book and fold the fabric over 1/2". Let it dry and repeat again to clean finish the book cover. Let it dry too.

8. Fill the spine with glue and also cover one edge of all your pages with glue. Allow to become slightly tacky and then place the pages into the book.