Navigation blog hop - A junk journal for traveling

I'm not sure if this is a junk journal, hand stitched book, or something else, but my internet searching for inspiration turned up a lot of posts titled "junk journal," so let's call it that! Thank you for joining me for the Club Scrap blog hop featuring the Navigation kit.  If you picked up my post in the middle, check out the full list on Club Scrap Creates.

When I last went to England, I took a "smash" like journal with me, and had a lot of fun writing and stashing memorabilia in it.  Karen's project at Club Scrap Retreat also inspired me to create my own book with space for storing stuff and writing my memories.  If you want to see how it's made, check out my picture tutorial.  If you want to see more of the inside of the book, skip to the bottom.

 I started by cutting two covers (8.75" x 5 5 5/8") and one spine piece (8.75" x 1 5/8").

 On the spine piece, I pierced 3 holes in a line - 7/8" from the top and bottom and in the middle.  Since the spine piece was narrow, I rested my ruler on the covers so it would be easier to balance.

 The outer holes were 0.25" from the edge of the spine and the inner holes were spaced 3/8" from the outer holes. You can see a template on the left, with the pieced spine on the right. The circles on the template were where I pierced.

 I glued the spine piece to a piece of the green paper from Navigations that measured 5 1/8" x 10.25".  Don't forget to repierce the holes!

The covers were glued to the dark green paper so there is a 1.5" overhang, and then the remainder of the covers had a light green piece of card stock (4.75" x 10.25"). The corners were clipped, and wrapped around to form the basis of the cover.

(At this point, if you want a ribbon closure for your book, I recommend gluing it to the board now - I forgot!!)  I covered the inside with the fabulous map paper on the left side, and created a pocket for the right side.  The pocket piece is 12" tall, with a score at 8.5".  The pocket piece is 5 1/8" wide, with 3/4" flaps on the bottom (below the score line).

Fold the bottom up and the flaps around the back to form the perfect pocket. If I was Kay Williamson, I would have stamped that empty spot on the bottom before assembling to create the perfect embellishment.

Here is what the inside of the cover looks like when complete - I pressed this overnight and repierced the holes in the spine.

I then created 4 signatures to stitch into my book.  There is nothing magical about these - to make it simple, you could just use 8.5 x 11" paper folded in half.  Mine have several different pocket constructions, and had the following four pages each:

• Outside page: 8.5 x 11 piece of paper folded in half
• Large pocket page: 10.75 x 12" piece of paper.  Score at 8.5 and fold up the skinny piece.  Fold the 10.75 x 8.5" piece of paper in half
• Inside page: 8.5 x 10.75 piece of paper folded in half
• Inside pocket: create a pocket from a 5.75 x 10.75 piece of paper.  Create a 0.75" flap on two edges, and along the long edge, remove a 5 x 0.75" strip so the 0.75" flaps will fold around the smaller piece to form a pocket

From one outside page, pierce a hole in the middle and 0.75" from the top and bottom on the score line.  Use this as a template to pierce holes in all of the other pages, noting that the inside pocket pages are shorter than the regular pages.

Each signature looked like this (burgundy is outside page; gold is large pocket page; kraft is inside page; brown is inside pocket)- note how the inside pocket page is not assembled at this point (the tabs on the inside pocket page have the printing on them - I trimmed a corner off before stitching to make it easier to put things in and out of the pocket).

Each signature was stitched using a pamphlet stitch. Starting from the middle hole, I stitched from inside the pocket to the outside of the book.  Then, I stitched from the top hole into the book, back out through the middle hole, and then back in through the bottom hole. I tied the tails of waxed linen thread together to secure the signature.  Repeat for each line, making sure you use one vertical line of holes each time and that the pockets are facing up!

When you're done with one signature, trim the tails of thread, and attach the flaps to make a pocket - a nifty side effect of this design is that your thread is hidden.

At the end, your book will look like this on the spine:

And like this on the edge - see how the four signatures are stitched, and there is a nice gap between them?

The Navigation Lite kit doesn't have enough paper to make all of inside pages, and I didn't want to cut all of it down to 8.5 x 11 to make the book.  Other papers were from To You With Love, Equestrian, Comfort Zone, and Academy.  Inside the front cover, I used Club Scrap gold pigment ink to create my own collaged background with a variety of classic stamps (London Calling, All Aboard, Sail Away, and Postcards from Paris) and incorporated the long cut apart into my own unique cover page.

The book looks pretty impressive when fanned out - I can't wait to fill it!

The large pocket pages are the perfect home for the envelopes from the Navigation kit (oops - forgot to show one in the book here!).

The inside pocket had a slash cut in them so I could easily place a large "tag" for later embellishment or journaling. Cut the slash before stitching.

The back pocket holds a Navigation envelope with a variety of cut aparts from this and other kits.

Since I forgot to attach my ribbon in the usual place, I put a cut apart from the Orient Express kit on the back to attach the green ribbon from the Navigation Lite kit.

I added some buttons from the Transformations kit on the spine to add some bling to the spine. The original plan was to tie together all of the exposed linen thread, but I didn't leave enough slack to do that.

I really love how the colors and themes of this month's kit blended beautifully with so many old and new kits.  I hope you enjoy the next stop on our hop - Marya Kaszubinski at A Notebook Novel always has something great to share!

Cantina Blog Hop - notebook for a fountain pen and cards

Thanks for joining me today on the Cantina blog hop which celebrates the July 2015 Club Scrap kit - Cantina!  I hope you enjoyed hopping over to my blog from Hetty - if you want to start at the beginning, check out the full list of bloggers over at Club Scrap.

The sunny orange in this kit is remarkably complementary to my new orange pen and notebook, so I decided to make this sweet little case to protect it and carry my pen with me.  It's hard to find a pre-made folio to hold these larger pens, so this is why I love that I can make my own!

When it's open, you can see the pen loop on the left hand side (since I'm a righty).  This is a very easy construction - just two pieces of book board separated by a 1/2 inch gutter. I decorated with a cutout from the Lite kit.

The notebook slides out of a pocket (my pocket tutorial is here - this pocket is 1/4 inch wider than the book height), and I glued a piece of ribbon behind the pocket first, so I would have a handy little place marker.

I've recently decided to dip into fountain pens (pun intended!), and the Lamy Al Star or Safari ones are my pen of choice for now, since they come in so many bright colors (orange, purple, blue/green, neon coral, and more!) and they are affordable.  Many also have matching ink colors, too.  The Clairefontaine notebooks are also reasonably priced, and work well with fountain pen inks.

At the end of the book project, I had some odd scraps left over, and decided to play with making some cards.  The Watercolor Blossoms stamp set from the 2013 retreat seemed perfect to try out Kay's watercolor technique with my gelatos.  I got out a big sheet of paper, and just started playing.  This image is under 4 inches tall, so you could cut your paper into strips to make it easier to work with.

As you can see, some turned out fabulous, and some did not.  There is a bit of a trick to making sure you have just enough water to activate the watercolors, but not so much that things get splotchy.  Some images are fixable - I used a brush after the fact to put some more color on the left hand blossom in this shot.

When all was said and done, I have a lot of floral panels to make sweet cards like this one for my neighbor.

Our next stop along the way is Dishing with Janet.  Hope you enjoyed my post and the entire hop!  Hope to see you next month.

A Celestial Book - Club Scrap blog hop

Welcome to a new year and another fabulous kit and blog hop from Club Scrap.  This month's project features the out-of-this-world Celestial kit!  If you just came from Ann's blog you are in the right place.  If you want to start at the beginning of the blog, be sure to check out the Club Scrap post with all of the hoppers in order.

This month, I made this little book - I am in love with the black paper printed with silver from the Lite kit:

It has an extra special cover, and a surprise inside.  Let's see how I did it.

First, I colored a strip from the Lite kit white cutapart using the neon inks.

I laid the cutapart where I wanted on the book board (4 1/4 tall by 4 1/8 wide), using some pencil marks to guide me, and wrapped it around the back of the board.  In the center of each star, I put a star brad for dimension and shine.

Next to each side of the cut apart, I laid some of that super-sparkly Silver Sparkle Paper Tape.  That stuff is amazing! I then glued this piece of board on top of another piece of board and pressed it in my book press while I worked on the top of the cover.  That hides those little brad ends and gives some extra dimension.

The top piece of the cover is made from two pieces of book board with a gap between them.  The gap is where our pretty strip shows through, but I still wanted to wrap all of the edges in paper.  So, I started by gluing the pieces on in just the right location, using the grid rulers to keep everything square and place them in the right spot.

At the top, I cut a triangle out of the paper, and sliced vertically down in the gap space.  The horizontal cut in the triangle is beyond the edge of the book board.

The triangle cuts and vertical cuts created flaps to wrap around the book board.  I tucked the little flaps in, and painted a bit of black paint in the corner just in case something went uncovered.

I then laid the top cover over the bottom with the decorative strip.  You'll see that the window is just a bit larger than the book board.  I glued the book board together, and then clipped the corners of the card stock and wrapped them around the entire cover.  I had thoughts here of adding even more star brads to the cover, but I wasn't sure where to stop, so I just decided not to!

You can see here that the little extra wide window creates a step in the paper, so that the black paper is just on the edge of the board. If I did this again, I would cut the window just the tiniest bit larger.  This side is perfect, but the other side wasn't quite large enough and I had a little extra black paper to try and trim off.

The back cover is made from 3 pieces of board glued together and covered with the same black paper.

For the inside of the book, I cut seven pieces of grey paper measuring 4" x 8" and six pieces of navy paper measuring 4" x 6".

I scored each piece of paper, and pierced sewing holes.

The blue pieces were folded in half, and then I used a decorative die (Scrollwork by Tim Holtz here) to cut a fancy edge.

When stitched together, the blue strips are decorative and provide a bit of extra space in the binding.

I used a little sparkly ribbon in my stitching, and the alternating grey and navy pages make the spine extra special.

Our next step in the blog hop is the fabulous Kay Williamson.  I love her creativity, and I'm sure she has something great to share with us this month!

An Envelope Punch Board File Folder Book - Club Scrap Blog Hop

I hope you're enjoying the Club Scrap blog hop with the Lock & Key kit!

I was inspired this month by a project we made at retreat - a composition book with tabs that stuck outside of the book.

I wondered how I could make this as a stitched book, with the tabs inside the book, like this (sneak peek at the inside!):

I also have to admit that some of the ladies at Retreat didn't think algebra was useful in daily life, so I also took this a bit as a personal challenge to work math into my next project!

The first puzzle to solve was how to use the envelope punch board to evenly space the tabs.  At Retreat, I just did what Karen told me, but I was on my own here.

I wanted to make a six inch book (since our paper is 12 x 12 inches), and have three evenly spaced tabs.  I did a little sketch of what I wanted first and got a formula to express the width of the paper, width of the tabs, and gap between the tabs.

The envelope punch board has 1/8" spacing on the ruler, so I used a spreadsheet to vary the width of the tabs from 1 to 5 inches in 1/8" increments, and played with different amounts of small gaps until I found a combination that yielded a paper width of six inches wide.

If there is interest, I can explain this in a bit more detail later and show different sizes - let me know in the comments!  With a formula and a spreadsheet, there is a lot you can do here to customize your tabs.

I cut paper that was 6" wide and 12" long from my kit.  On the short end, I punched three papers as follows on the short end:

• For tab 1 - punch at 0" and 1.75"
• For tab 2 - punch at 2 1/8" and 3 7/8"
• For tab 3 - punch at 4 1/4" and 6" (or repeat tab 1 and flip the paper)

Trim the pieces you don't want so you end up with one tab on each of three papers.  Score these at 5 3/4" inches.

I wanted the tabs to stick out from the book, the remaining paper was cut to 6" wide and 11 5/8" long and scored in the middle (5 3/4"). 

The outer papers on the book are either a tab piece or a smaller piece of paper, so I created a pocket page for the front and back. (see my previous tutorial)

The book was stitched together using waxed linen thread over ribbons.  (see Tricia's video for an awesome explanation of this technique - starting at about 6:30)

Not being content with just having an awesome book on the inside, I created a niche on the cover to hang some charms and baubles. (see my previous tutorials)

And, here is the finished project.  I might do some more embellishing later, but it is bedtime now!

Hope you enjoy the next stop on the hop - the lovely Debbie Weller always has a fun project showcasing the monthly kit.  If you got lost along the way or want to start out at the beginning, check out Club Scrap's blog for a complete listing of participants.

I can't wait to see what Fire and Ice brings us next month....

Take Wing Blog Hop - A dimensional book

Thank you for joining me for the Take Wing blog hop sponsored by Club Scrap.

Each month, their kits inspire me to try new techniques and practice old ones in new ways.  The Take Wing collection inspired me to make a book. This book is a twist on a dimensional book I developed a few years ago (my older posts have full tutorial details).

It uses several layers of bookboard on the cover to create a dimensional niche.  The thick covers and size of the pages reminds me of "big-little" books I used to read.

Three layers of thinner bookboard are used on the cover.  Between the second and third layers I placed punched circles to simulate clouds, and the bird was mounted on a piece of bookboard to lift it above the clouds (but below the surface of the cover of the book).

For the inside pages, I cut a 12 x 12 sheet into 4 x 6 pieces and one 8 x 8 piece for the back cover. On the 4 x 6 pieces, I used a Sizzix die to cut a fancy edge.  This creates a little extra space in the book, and a cool decorative effect.  Because the pages are 4x4, they are perfect for showcasing a photo collection.

What else did I use here?

• A chicken wire stencil from Crafter's workshop for the textured pattern on the cover
• I used a brayer with a foam attachment and a Kaledacolor ink pad to create the vibrant stripes
• The Be Still stamp from Club Scrap for the swirls (I used the wood stamp, but similar swirls are still available on this lovely unmounted sheet)
• Club Scrap Retreat stencil from 2011(no longer available) for the bird - traced onto shrink plastic first
• Elements of Style stamp from Stampin' Up! for the swirls on the bird - be sure to use StazOn ink for stamping on shrink plastic. It just works best.

Next on our hop is the fabulous Debbie Weller.  I can't wait to see what she has planned for this month!

If you want to start back at the beginning, or have lost your way, please check out the Club Scrap blog for the full listing of participants.