I spent much of the past week making journals to collage in. Despite all the books I've made in the past five years, these are actually the first that I made for myself with a distinct purpose in mind.
The two on the right in this photo are tall and narrow ~ they have virtually the same size paper as the Midori Travelers Notebook inserts I've been using to collage in. I like that size ~ each spread is 8.5 x 8.5 (actually the Midori insert spread is 8.25 x 8.5).
The pages in the third journal are 8.5 x 5.5, a standard half-letter size page. This is slightly bigger than the handmade journal I'm also using now for collages (see last two photos below). I also like this size to work in.
That handmade journal I just referred to, A Hermit's Wild Friends, that I made in a workshop a few years ago, was not designed to do all that collaging in. The bound spine is/was not wide enough to accommodate adding all that ephemera, which has caused the fore edges to fan out to about four inches already...and I'm not finished with it yet.
Consequently, because the book was constructed with only heavy two-sided tape holding the covers onto the rest of the book, the covers started to pop off the book. So I just pulled them all the way off a few months ago.
When I'm finished with this journal, I'll glue the covers back on with PVA. Or, I'll fashion covers out of something else, and use those cool vintage covers for another journal down the road...probably the latter.
Hope you all have a lovely holiday weekend, whatever you celebrate. xx
The two on the right in this photo are tall and narrow ~ they have virtually the same size paper as the Midori Travelers Notebook inserts I've been using to collage in. I like that size ~ each spread is 8.5 x 8.5 (actually the Midori insert spread is 8.25 x 8.5).
The pages in the third journal are 8.5 x 5.5, a standard half-letter size page. This is slightly bigger than the handmade journal I'm also using now for collages (see last two photos below). I also like this size to work in.
That handmade journal I just referred to, A Hermit's Wild Friends, that I made in a workshop a few years ago, was not designed to do all that collaging in. The bound spine is/was not wide enough to accommodate adding all that ephemera, which has caused the fore edges to fan out to about four inches already...and I'm not finished with it yet.
Consequently, because the book was constructed with only heavy two-sided tape holding the covers onto the rest of the book, the covers started to pop off the book. So I just pulled them all the way off a few months ago.
When I'm finished with this journal, I'll glue the covers back on with PVA. Or, I'll fashion covers out of something else, and use those cool vintage covers for another journal down the road...probably the latter.
Hope you all have a lovely holiday weekend, whatever you celebrate. xx
