paper: pretty paper. true stories. {and scrapbooking classes with cupcakes.}: Is just a choice

It makes me giggle to see everyone who has signed up for the Christmas Journal class getting anxiety about choosing a book. I can only giggle because I am exactly the same. I have several blanks and I can never make up my mind. With some projects I can just pick one thing and go with it…but for this one I never want to choose just one.

This is a possible. I might keep it. Or I might gift it to someone else so they have a place to journal this Christmas. But I’m sharing it here because I have a hunch there are others like me out there reading: others who refuse to throw away pretty magazines.

This particular book is made from the 2003 Christmas issue of Ideal Home. For whatever reason, I’ve kept it all this time and I still love the images in this one. {No, it is not the only ancient Christmas mag in my collection. Nor is it the oldest. But I’m working on it.} The truth is, I don’t want to keep the entire magazine really. There are whole sections that I don’t care about at all. But there are a few things I do, and so I keep the whole darned thing. Until now.

I ripped out the pages I liked and cut them down to 8×8. I had 17 images, but you can use more pages to make a longer book.
I trimmed 20 sheets of white cardstock to 8.25×8.25.
I put the extra 3 sheets aside and used a good gluestick to adhere the magazine pages to just one side of each cardstock square.
On the reverse of the cardstock, I used two star shaped masks by Heidi Swapp. With a cotton ball, I sponged green dye ink over the stars, then removed the masks to leave the white design behind.
To make the covers, I cut two pieces of chipboard to 8×8 and four pieces of red cardstock to 8.5×8.5. I sandwiched the papers together so the chipboard was in the centre, then a layer of red on each side, then a layer of white on the outside. Inside the front cover should be one of the sheets with a magazine page; inside the back cover should have the star design—that’ll be the third of your sheets you set aside.
To bind the book, punch holes if you have a sturdy hole punch and lace with ribbons, or take it to a copy shop and have it spiral bound.

Then decorate the front and back covers as you like, and you’ll have a journal that’s ready to go with just a nice pen or two. I love this stamp so much for the back of books—it’s by River City Rubber Works and I got mine on a little shopping spree alongside CKU-New England way back in 2002, so it’s even older than that magazine. I’ve been using it on the back of cards and little books ever since, but it’s not normally something I would show. But when Kristina sent in her images for her minibook, it was on the back of hers too. Giddy.

Two more days until we start Christmas Journaling!

xlovesx

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