For the past month I've been doing on off work on a fairy, butterfly, nature themed journal. I set out to use things from my stash, and a fairy themed book seemed perfect for the multiple things I've been saving.
Complications did of course come along, including the fact that once again my journal ended up being so chunky as a single book that I had to split it and make two books instead of one. I'll admit, despite having to make a second cover, I rather enjoyed the process of splitting my 2.5'' book into something more manageable. This split allowed me to experiment with two different cover styles, and for fun I named them.
The first book above already has it's name on the cover, "Fairy Dust". The cover of the first book was originally meant for the second half of the journal, but I decided it fit the first part of the book more.
My second book I named "Honey Blossom" because this journal contains bumble bees and lots of flowers. The cover of this book was the first one I did before I had to split the journal. The insides are covered in a green packaging paper that I crinkled and inked with brown and green stamp pads for a marbled look (the paper became darker and richer in color after I glazed it).
For both journals I used Nouveau scrapbook paper found at the dollar store a long time ago, and wallpaper flower fairies which have been in my stash for even longer. I also used some old wrapping paper to frame the fairy in on the Honey Blossom book, then accented the cover with small stickers (also from the dollar store). Both journals were then glazed with Liquitex satin varnish.
The thing I love about the Nouveau paper is the way it perfectly encompasses my carefully placed fairies, the patterns so geometric that it seems the fairies were already part of the paper to begin with.
Originally both journals were meant to have charms, but I made different decisions as I went, and settled with just one book having the right charms. For the Honey Blossom journal, I added a few charms that have been in my stash forever. The metal bumble bee charm was from a Burt's Bees health kit, came with the ball chain, and I added the extra charm to that which was a bead that broke from my flower candle holder. I got some help with wire wrapping it and topping it with a bead, then I had my charm. Cool thing is, you can take it off the ball chain and wear it as a necklace if you wanted to. :)
Of course you wouldn't want to miss seeing the full journals, so here's a video. :D
As a side note, this project took me awhile because I had a lot of decisions to make. Originally I wanted to try a technique I saw online where you use a paper towel roll to make a curved spine. I thought it would be nice to try as a technique in covering up the wires of this style binding. I wanted to settle with doing this technique so I could create that fairy tale book style, but even after finding the perfect material for creating a faux leather spine, I started seeing it might be more complicated than I was willing to put up with for this project.
at first I wanted the spine to cover up some mistakes, like improperly punched holes and glazing accidents, but found once the books were bound, you didn't notice those mistakes so much. This led to the decision of saving the curved spine and fake leather fabric for some other project, possibly a different book, maybe more.
Originally I was going to add a few extra charms to the Fairy Dust journal, those charms being a bell, an old earring that reminds me of a dragon egg or fantasy light, and some fairies in a bottle. I decided not to because I had other ideas in mind for these objects. I figured it would be better to tackle these charms as separate projects, and I want to make them detachable elements so they can be used in photography with figurines or dangling from a key chain.
The fairies in a bottle remains the most complicated project on the charm list. I still lack the proper supplies to pull off what I have in mind, but I hope to tackle this idea sometime soon.
I'll also note that I excluded using the ribbon and twine shown in the photo above. After splitting my book, I was happy to find they didn't need a closure to keep them shut.
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