A Book with an Edge

Starring the Handy Woman's Secret Weapon!

This month, Carolyn Dube's "Let's Play!" theme is all about things that we can find at the hardware store.

Duct Tape is in a class by itself as far as hardware items are concerned. As far as I know, there is nothing more versatile than this extremely sticky and rugged tape. People use it for temporary repairs on car parts, to seal things such as boxes, and even sometimes as a handy art supply.

I'd used it before, of course. I think that most of us surely have. I'd also made a little art using it, as well, one time for a special altered book show years ago. Another time, it was a weirdly wild little ATC card. I used a big, black Sharpie pen with it. That was fun!

This time, I made a book cover using a cereal box and a number of other materials. I finished the pages and the binding last night. This was ten times more fun than my prior two projects!
:)

I made a sort of photo diary of this project. This starts with the "bones" of my book, that is the structure upon which the text block will hang once sewn into place: the cover. I have to tell you that the cover and I had words at more than one tough moment! I am still not satisfied with everything about it, and already plan to alter it to suit the look I wish to achieve.

So here's that very, very, very long photo diary!

1.) Cereal Box

2.) First layer of Duct Tape

3.) A Distressed Lining

The lining is from an old book of scrapbook paper. I used 2 different but similar ones for the lining. I distressed all edges using an old Rubber Stampede Coffee Bean stamp pad. Having kept that well loved stamp pad in a ziploc bag for years has made it last a very long time--at least 6 years! I have never re-inked it, but have kept it for one thing only, that it adds a distressed look that won't budge if any moisture touches it.

4.) Materials and Tools on Display!

I don't show everything in the above picture, but you get the point, I'm sure. I'll give a list later on in this post. The white template on the book's inside cover (over its spine area) was used to gauge where to place the holes prior to binding. This was later removed.

5.) Junk Journal Spine

The spine may have a rougher look, a kind of "edgy" look to it, but it's a rugged enough book to take some hard knocks!

6.) Junk Journal Pages 1

Photos 6 and 7 show the signatures I'd already cut and folded. These are the pages before binding. A signature, for those who've never tried binding their own book before, is a collection of folded sheets, generally (although not always) sized the same way. Here I've shown how I chose to use rougher paper than I normally might to fit with the rugged look of the duct tape cover. All except, of course, for 2 sheets from a recent monoprint adventure (that's in my "No-Gelli Print" post from last month). You can see one of those in Photos 7 and 8, just below.

7.) Pages 2

8.) Sewn Pages 1

Some of you are familiar with my first blog, Plush Possum Studio, a Free Graphics place. If you are one of those people, you might recall my "Favorite Things" posts there, including my "brown paper packages" themed set. I confess it--I just love to play with brown paper. That is, most brown art supplies in general. In Photos 6, 8 and 9 are shown pages cut out of old brown paper items like old paper sacks. Mainly, I've used packing paper. The wrinkles make me happy. How could anybody resist such lovely old folds and wrinkles! Plus, I even added some purposeful tearing at the top and front edges.

9.)More Sewn Pages

10.) Room to Grow

Photo 10 has 2 points to make. The first is how I bound my junk journal with room for stuffing it full of lots of collage and other fun things. the second is that I had a remnant of some very unique crinkled two-tone green paper, and thought it would look fun with the brown wrinkly pages already chosen for this book.

Materials, Techniques and Tools List:

--empty cereal box

--3M Duct Tape (every handy person's secret weapon!)

--waste paper (used paper bags and brown packing paper)

--Stiletto (for poking holes during binding)

--3m Gluestick (all out of Uhu)

--needle and waxed linen thread

--old scrapbook sheets

--2 black card stock monoprints

--discarded manila file folders (for templates + easy sizing of pages)

--ruler

--scissors, pencil, marker

--5 hole pamphlet stitch technique (I needed to brush up on that a bit over at YouTube first)

No bone folders were harmed in the making of this project.

:)

Yes, I really do have one, but I wanted this new fun junky journal to be fully what it is, and not to be refined.

Well I guess that would be all for this particular "Let's Play!" adventure.

Thank you for stopping by!

~Rose