Gratitude, and a leather journal
Tuesday, January 07, 2014
I decided to start this year right. It will begin with a positive thought a day, recorded in a brand new gratitude journal. I loosely followed this tutorial to make a soft leather-bound journal, with seven signatures made up from an assortment of lovely papers.
I figured, if I put a lot of love into making something like this, I'd be more likely to make an effort to write in it every day. So far so good, but we're only a week in...
I bought leather scraps and a leather awl off ebay which took ages to arrive, and the rest of it was mostly what I found in my craft stash. It didn't take very long to make, just a lot of patience to get everything lined up and measured correctly.
Making holes in paper? Easy Peasy.
Making holes in thick leather? I got a blister. Note to self; make holes bigger next time, so they don't disappear into the self-healing leather!
Here's a closer look at my signatures. Each contains four 110gsm white paper pages, folded in half inside of a printed paper cover. These papers are all from the "Home to Roost" collection, lovely.
The first signature is housed in thick 400gsm carbon paper, stamped with one of my doodle stamps (made from a doodle in my sketch pad) and watercoloured with acrylic ink accents. It's like colouring-in, for grown-ups.
The phrase on the front cover was bothering me, so I later added in a comma after today. Breathe.
Ta da! All bound up with lime green waxed linen thread.
This is the front of my journal. The closure is a button I made from a stick I picked up in Wanstead Forest; holes drilled, waxed with beeswax polish, and sewn on with waxed linen thread.
The faux suede wrap goes around the button and tucks in at the back.
Incidentally, I bought enough leather to make a couple of journals. Maybe if I get started now, they'll be done in time for Christmas!!
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