But last december Mary Ann put her online class on sale and I just couldn't resist. I had to know how these beautiful handmade journals were put together. So I joined the class hoping for the best. I did not really have time to get into it until two weeks ago and in those two weeks I have had the time of my life! Every left over hour was spent in my studio working on my very own ROD journal. Kudo's to Mary Ann, who's class is absolutely wonderful and very inspiring. She really takes the time to explain every little detail and shows it to you on dozens of video's and several pdf-files. I never had any problem understanding the process and found her very generous with her information.
I won't get into the details of making the journal (after all that's what the class is for), but I would like to show you how the journal turned out. I finished it yesterday. Here's a little look at the book standing up:
It turned out nicely thick and juicy and I just love it!
In a way the journal consists of two parts: a handmade fabric cover and this cover you fill with two paper signatures. Well the cover (inside and out) looks like this. The first is the book closed. The wrap around is a piece of lace I had lying around. I just love love love lace and always end up buying it if I come across it somewhere.
The cover is made up of all sorts of pieces of fabric I had lying around. I embellished it with cut circles and ribbons (I like ribbon almost as much as I like lace).
The inside of the cover is made with white fabric and some sheer lace with sparkles on it (which you can't really see very well). After I had finished the cover I stamped the inside with stars and swirls to give all that white a little more color.
After the cover was done the real fun began, well for me anyways. The paper signatures had to be cut, embellished and sewn into the book. Everything in this book is done with a sewing machine and mine was quite surprised to be used so much after being neglected for so long ;-). I never knew sewing paper was so much fun!
Although Mary Ann encourages you to use just any scraps you have lying around and this certainly gives wonderful results I simply had to use a selection of all the beautiful patterned paper I have lying around. I am a paper addict and it would be simply inconceivable to use old scraps when all that paper was calling out to me. So now I have another excuse to buy more pretty papers, haha.
The fun part was also in using all sorts of little ephemera, beautiful postcards and just anything I had lying around just because I thought it was pretty ;-)
Here are some examples of spreads from the journal:
As you can see the book is full of little pockets and gadgets, which was such fun to do. There are way more spreads than this, but that would be a little too much for one post (there are over 30 spreads in the journal). If you want to see all the spreads and pictures of this book you can go to my flickr. Just click on the link in the sidebar.
All in all I am really happy with the result and I will enjoy filling it up (I already have a use in mind for it). But most of all: I want to make more of these journals! They are just so rewarding to make and they would make great gifts as well.
For now however, after being behind the sewing machine for two weeks straight I may want to get my hands dirty again and get out my paints ;-)