Liz Hicks Studios: Art Journal with a faux hand ribbon binding

I love the look of beautifully hand bound journals with gorgeous flowing ribbons.

I dream of someday taking watercolor paper, gorgeous hand dyed ribbons and a needle and binding all my own journals.

The reality is... I don't have time for that..

As much as I wish I could be completely 100% artisan, I just can't. And I know I am not the only one who feels this way.

I see so many pictures of gorgeously bound albums, crafted with care. I've even learned how to do it from Youtube and even last weeks Truthscrap event where Andrea Chebeleu showed some gorgeous hand binding techniques.

Still, all the knowledge in the world can not make time and energy appear :)

So instead of kicking myself for NOT having the time to do hand binding... I've decided to take the look of binding and HACK it into my album with ease.

Faux Hand Bound Journal

First take strips of ribbon and cut them into 12-18 inch strips, enough to horizontally cover the spine of your journal.

Take your journal and break the spine, I mean really work it back and forth so that your journal would lay flat if possible.

Next take some re-positionable adhesive and use it on your outer spine. If you don't have some no worry, just be extra careful with the next step.

Open up your journal faced down with your outer spine facing up. Line up your ribbons so that they lay perpendicular to your spine (centered). Continue to add ribbons to cover your journal.

Next, sew on the cover of your journal closely down the center near the spine of your journal using a denim or heavy duty needle and proper settings. I used my Brother Innovis 950 D for this. If you need to take a few pages out of your journal, that's cool. This journal is meant to have a broken tattered feel to it.

Once you've sewn a few lines on one cover, do the same to the other cover. You will have your ribbons sewn into your journal with the about an inch in the center between the two seems. Remove your journal from your machine and cut any loose threads you may not want.

Weave or tie your ribbons as you like, bows, knots or eve a braid.. get creative.

After you are done you will have a gorgeous faux handmade journal. It looks handmade... but it only takes a few simple steps.

Thanks to the great friends over at Offray Ribbons for offering up this ribbon to work with. They gave me this ribbon to try and and incorporate into my crafts, which just worked perfectly for my version of a faux hand bound journal.