I had been thinking about putting together a travel journal for my trip to France & Spain next year and I finally had some free time to get it done. The inspiration was the vintage clip and metal piece I found at one of my favorite, inspiring local stores, Nest in Mystic CT. This is a long post with lots of pictures so get a cuppa your beverage of choice and settle in!
I did have a few requirements for my journal. #1, I wanted to use Tim Holtz's Ideology Large Folio as my base. #2, I wanted to keep a vintage styling throughout the folio. #3, I wanted to be able to take it apart so it's easier to work in and then make the bindings permanent when I was done.
As most of you know, my house is up for sale so I prepacked A LOT of stuff, thinking that I wouldn't need it any time soon. WRONG! I had packed up the folio last year so I had to go hunting for it. All of my boxes are labeled as to what room they will end up in so I thought it would be easy to find. WRONG AGAIN! I never found it which means it's in an incorrectly labeled box and I just didn't have the patience to continue the search. It is relatively inexpensive so off to my LSS I went. Thank goodness they had one! Time to start pulling out papers, paints & inks. My ink of choice was Archival Ink because I didn't want it to bleed. Permanence is a must!
I used Tim's French Industrial and Wallflower Pads and the Wallflower Vellum pad. I prepped the folio and waterfall insert it came with using Antique Linen Distress Paint. Next I stenciled the insert with Archival Inks and 3 different Tim Holtz stencils.
His stencils repeat their designs (at least these did) so it was easy to get a smooth look. I heat set the inks (remove stencil) before placing the stencil up or down so the ink wouldn't smudge. The second pic above also shows a simple pamphlet stitch blank page journal (removable) for writing and collaging. There is one spread for each day of the trip. Still have to decorate the front and date the pages.
The vintage clip holds small plastic sleeves for ephemera that I will collect during my trip. Under the sleeves is a vintage map of Europe from the French Industrial stash pad. I fashioned a large envelope from printed vellum to store bigger bits. For the waterfall insert I cut the top three tabs in half for 6 smaller pages (some with pockets). The back three are full size pages. Every flat surface has paper adhered to it. I inked some of the paper edges before gluing down. I used Matte Collage Medium. Once the sections were dry I trimmed off any excess then sanded the edges so they were smooth. First I did the inside of the folio then the outside. This was a bit laborious but SO worth the effort. Once everything was sanded and smooth I inked ALL my edges. You know me! I can't stand those white edges!
So how did I temporarily bind the parts inside the folio to the folio you ask? Well, this is how:
It doesn't look too pretty right now. I punched the holes for the bands with my trusty Japanese Screw Punch. It cuts through all those layers like butta! Once I have completed the inside of the folio I will collage over all the elastic bands (also an Ideology product) making the binding permanent - and hidden.
That's it for now!
Happy Creating!
T
