Decorated Journals

Here are the composition books I decorated for the craft fair. They could be used for journals but also just school notebooks. I kept most of them generic so that anyone who bought them could buy letter stickers to either add their name to the front, or a school subject, or whatever they would like.

For this one, I wanted to have a textured vintage look, so I sponged onto the front and back some Tim Holtz  distress ink, in the walnut stain and tea dye colors. I waited for it to dry completely overnight, and then added the stamped and embossed wreath with white embossing powder. For additional accents, I punched holes in the cover and put some bronze and gold brads through to accent the wreath even more. Then I had two separate stamps ‘treasure’ and ‘memories’ and thought it read well together that could be used for a family journal.

Any embellishments to the covers, I made sure to use brads so that they would be more secure for the type of use a journal gets and not fall off like a sticker embellishment could.  So for these embellishments below, they were stickers that I just removed the foam sticker from it, punched a hole in the middle, and inserted a large brad in the center then through a hole I made in the cover.

I used my crop a dile 2 to reach the placement of the holes on the cover.

On the inside of each composition book, I put an envelope in coordinating colors that has a recloseable closure.

I punched a 1 inch circle, placed it on the envelope where the string will be, then poked a hole in the center so I knew where the brads are to go.  Then I punched 1/8 holes in the center of the 1 inch circles to make it easier to put the brads through.

To make a cleaner look between the paper on the cover, and the edge of the duct tape spine, I finish it off with some coordinating ribbon that I put double sided tape on it to line the front.

When putting the duct tape on, I also build into the spine of each book, a ribbon bookmark that will allow you to keep your place!

They are fun to make so I hope to make more for the next craft fair I attend. I thought i’d also try to put a couple on etsy to see how they do.

Thanks for visiting!