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.

This is also a post for the Designers Craft Connection, so besides mine...  make sure to follow the links below for mor awesome ribbon projects.

Designer Craft Connection
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Thanks for joining today :)

~Liz ♥

Shining a little JOY on recycled crafting

I kind of have a thing for turning trash into treasure. I guess it comes from my environmentalist mom but every time I look at a jar, a lid or even a plastic yogurt container I often think of things I can reuse them for around the house...give them a second life.

Of course these ambitious ideas never really seem to fit time wise into my life so through the year I tend to grow a collection of items... well today I am putting them to work!

JOY Luminaire Home Decor

Step 1- Frost the Glass

To begin these re-purposed luminaire, grab 3 spaghetti sauce jars clean and label free.

Using vinyl, cut out your designs. I used my ScanNCut and some of the built in snowflake and letter designs for this project. My machine settings were blade depth 2, preasure 2 and cut speed 1. Place the designs onto your clean glass surface. Contact paper offers the cleanest application.

Add a generous layer of etching cream to your glass and allow to process according to directions. I let it process for 15 minutes and used Etch-All etching creme.

Step 2: Colorize your jars

I use a turquoise permanent ink from Clearsnap to add some texture and color to the frosted glass. This helps to make the frosted glass pop with color and you can vary the saturation of the color just by adding more ink.

Step 3: Decorate and Display!


Add a little garland or tinsle to the top of your jars to cover up the lip of the jar and then display your jars with white tulle in them for day display.

Or instead of tulle, add some tealights for the dark to use these jars as luminaires.

These little recycled beauties are great night or day and can be created to be used all year around. These have a holiday twist but you can easily change the designs and make these work for any season. Its a great way to repurpose those jars and add a little style to your yard or home.

Thanks for stopping by today, I hope you will continue on the hop and use the link below to check out some more fun ideas to get creative during the holiday season.

Designer Craft Connection
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Thanks again!

~ Liz Hicks ♥