Beautiful journals

It has been a Scrap Journal factory in the studio lately. I thought you might be interested in seeing the process of making the covers.

Above are some of the basic tools. From left to right: Micro-spatula, brass rule, Teflon folder, brayer, damp rag, baby wipes, apron.

Book boards, upper right.

Glue brushes

I almost forgot the most important thing! The glue!

Here are the covers, endpapers and "doodads" before gluing. Doodads is what we started calling the pieces that get decoupaged
on the covers:

Here is a cover that has had the glue applied. The book board has been placed on top. The next step in turning in the, well, the turn-ins.

This is where the micro-spatula comes in handy. You can use it to carefully lift the wet cover out of the excess glue on the waste paper without getting glue all over your hands, the cover and a myriad of other places it shouldn't be. For me, keeping the glue from getting all over is the hardest part of bookbinding. That's why these are essential:

I always keep baby wipes and a damp rag handy, and wear an apron to wipe glue off my hands. The apron is really more about protecting your work than protecting your clothes.

Burnishing the turn-ins.

Gluing down the endpapers. The cover is lying sideways in this picture.

Decoupaging the "doodad." Again, the challenge here is to not get glue all over the cover. To quote Run-DMC, "It's Tricky."

Once the covers are glued, they need to be pressed. A book press is a wonderful thing, but if you don't have one, a stack of heavy volumes will do the trick.

The finished covers:

(Some of) the finished journals:

These can be purchased at Hollander's.

Sharon