Wendy's Life Within The Seed - From Beads to Book

Hello Crafty Friends!
Did you love Wendy's bead dangle yesterday? Well - those beads were the seeds. Now have a look at the life within those seeds..... Wendy's beautiful journal. Enough said!

Hello Everyone,

This project is a 'carry on' from the Bead Dangle I had previously made. I classed my bead dangle as my 'seed' and now I am making a journal that grew from that seed (the bead dangle). So much inspiration came to me after making the paper layered beads, I really needed to make something for them to hang from. And the beautiful selection of BoBunny papers were actually crying out to me..."Put me in a journal....put me in a journal..." heehee! So that's exactly what I did. I gave myself a challenge to use only the patterned BoBunny papers to decorate the journal with. the papers made wonderful tags and cut outs to put on the pages. I did run out of ephemera and I ended up using a couple of images from a magazine.

This journal was a little different for me and it's actually the first one I have made using a corset spine. So, it was a bit of 'trial and error' but in the end...there were no errors and it turned out so pretty.

What I used in this project:
*BoBunny 'Cottontail' selection of papers
*Pastel coloured card stock from Aunty Vera
*Pva Glue and a glue stick
*Ribbon and a few laces and appliques from my own supplies
*scissors
*grey papers for signatures and some extra paper to back on tags
*Eyelets
*Cropadile
*calico fabric
*my sewing machine


Let's get started: The Outside Cover

I cut two pieces of the blue cardboard 5 1/4 inches by 7 inches for the front and back outside pieces of the cover. Then the spine 1 inch by 7 inches. The spine is pages from an old text book that I have glued on top of each other to get a good sturdy thickness. I also cut two pieces of the flower pattern BoBunny paper to cover the blue card board. I left the text showing on the spine for some contast. I measured out the spots and marked the places to put the holes for the eyelets. This is where I am going to run the ribbon through.

I used my sewing machine and run a zig-zag stitch around the three edges not where the holes have been made. I used my cropadile to make the holes and also to squeeze the eyelets in. Now, it was ready to run the ribbon through. I used two lengths of pink ribbon and thread it through the eyelets starting from bottom to top and left it rather loose because you need to glue it to inside cover before you tie the ribbon together.

Once I finished the outside of the cover, I was ready to make the inside of the cover.

The Inside Cover: 

I cut one piece of pink cardboard 12 inches by 7 inches and used my score board to score at 5 1/4,
5 3/4, 6 1/4  and 6 3/4 inches. Gave the score lines a fold. Then I reinforced the the spine (where the score lines were) with a strip of Stik-A-Tex. You can use anything you choose to reinforce the spine, I just prefer the fabric Stik-A-Tex. I then cut a piece of calico to cover the pink cardboard with a little bit of overhang, which will be sandwiched between the inside (pink cardboard) and the outside (blue cardboard). I used my sewing machine to attach the calico to the pink cardboard but you can also glue it if you choose.

Before attaching the inside and outside covers together, I cut the papers for the signatures using some plain greyish papers I had in my supplies. The size of the signature papers is 6 1/2 by 10 3/4 inches. I decorated the pages with images from the BoBunny patterned papers and had so much fun cutting out flower images and making tags and pockets for the pages.

Making tags:

I cut the flower images from the BoBunny paper and backed them with some thin cardboard from my supplies. I then used my sewing machine and zig-zagged around the edges and added a calico tab on top of the tag.

The small tags below were just cut from the already printed BoBunny papers and I have just added an eyelet to the top of each one. Then I added a small length of eyelash trim to the holes.

Making word ephemera:

I cut a heap of words from the BoBunny paper and then backed it onto strips of the coloured cardboard. This is such a simple but pretty way of making word ephemera.

Decorating the Pages:

Using some of the leftover BoBunny papers, I made some pockets, side tucks and also some paper flowers to decorate the pages. I added a little bit of lace from my supplies to add a touch more prettiness to the pockets.

Above is a pocket with added lace and below is the front inside cover and a fold out first page with a side tuck spot. The fence was on a sheet of the BoBunny papers and I cut it out and added it as a pocket to the front inside cover.

Showing a few of the decorated pages...

After I decorated the signature pages, it was time to sew the signatures into the inside cover (with the calico attached). I used a simple three hole pamphlet stitch and some crochet thread. The first signature has four full pages, folded in half...and the last signature has five full pages, folded. The middle signature I made into an ephemera folder by cutting down and folding a 12 by 12 piece of the BoBunny paper.

Above is the middle signature showing some other tags and ephemera.

Attaching inside and outside covers:

I layed the inside cover with signatures already sewn in flat, put some PVA glue on the calico, mainly around the edges. Then used my hot glue and put that on the inside of the outside cover and worked rather fast to put the outside cover onto the inside cover. I then repeated this process for the back of the cover and leaving the spine until last. Once the glues had dried and with the book still laying flat, I adjusted the spine's ribbon, got it where I wanted it and then placed a drop of hot glue at the top and bottom center of the spine and tied up both lengths of ribbon....Oh WOW!!! So dang pretty! Heehee!

I tied the bead dangle through the first ribbon and it just looked beautiful. The last step was to decorate the front cover and I did so using some of the laces from my own supplies. I also added a strip of decorated tuille as a tie closure and tied a key on the front of it.

I really enjoyed making this corset spine journal and the BoBunny papers were so gorgeous to use in this journal. I am still in awe of how making the layered egg shaped beadsfrom the BoBunny papers lead to me making this lovely journal...."THE LIFE WITHIN THE SEED"....

I have a flip through of this journal and it can be seen in the video below.

HAVE A GREAT DAY!

Wendy xox