Blog Hop for Mini Album Makers Blogaversary!

Hello friends and happy September!  Today we begin a new challenge at Mini Album Makers.  This very special challenge marks our first Blogaversary!  We are so excited to have shared the last year with each of you! To celebrate our Blogaversary, we've organized a blog hop this month.  We're giving away a $25 gift certificate to Blitsy.com to one lucky reader whose name will be chosen at random from all of the comments on the Design Team blogs.  In addition, Lindy's Stamp Gang will give a $25 gift certificate to one lucky participant in our challenge.

This month I'm stepping off of my beaten path and away from my grungy, vintage norm.  I've been itching to get back into art journaling with paints and doodles and decided to make a cardboard junk journal to help me get started.  I had seen a tutorial for this type of book years ago and do not know where, but remember that they used cardboard and water activated packing tape to join the pages.

I decided to use this roll of athletic tape I picked up from the Dollar Tree.  Make sure to check out my other Dollar Store Paper Craft projects HERE.  I cut my pieces of double-ply cardboard down to 5x7".  You will need an even number of pages no matter what size.  I used eight and my book is 2 1/4" thick but this will vary depending on the number of pages you use and the thickness of your cardboard.  I butted the long ends of two pieces of cardboard together and joined them together with the tape.

Once I had two sets of pages joined and folded, I butted the sets together and joined them with more tape.

Once I had four sets of pages, I butted them and joined them with even more tape.

Now with this super sticky tape you will need something to cover the spine to adhere to the sticky exposed parts.  I tried using more tape as shown above but changed my mind and used sticky back canvas instead.  I had some that was black with a white dotty pattern, but you could use Ranger's plain sticky back canvas and paint it if you like.

Now the whole beauty of this book is that the pages are super heavy to withstand wet mediums and the pages open flat because of the binding method.  I chose the 5x7" size because I could open the book pages and fit the entire spread onto my 8x10" gelli plate.  Happy day!  See how beautifully the tape accepts the paint print!

Here's my book being printed.  Notice how easily the pages open and lay flat for printing.  If you have a smaller gelli plate, you could do mono prints by laying your book down and using the gelli plate to "stamp" your backgrounds on top of it.

Here's a better shot of the improved spine.  I added some vintage neon pink trim to wrap my spine and concealed the edges beneath a smaller layer of cardboard for my cover.  My doodling was done with a LePen permanent marker.  I love this pen because it's not shiny like a Sharpie.  I used some $1 alphabet stamps and the Tim Holtz Storybook Bigz XL alphabet die to cut the word "joy."  Blitsy has a great deal on Tim's Bigz XL dies, so make sure to check those out HERE.

I made these journal pages three years ago when I was into art journaling more.  Since today's book is a work in progress, I thought I would share them again so you would get an idea of how I will fill my cardboard junk journal.  (Click to enlarge.)

That's all for me!  Again, make sure to visit each of the following blogs and leave a comment for your chance to win a $25 gift certificate to Blitsy.com.  Please share a comment with a link if you create your own journal following this tutorial.  :)

Nancy Wethington - Art-From-The-Heart

Jennie Atkinson - Live the Dream

Anne Redfern - RedAnne

Maria Lillepruun - Magic Attic Design

Alison Bomber - Words and Pictures 

Inna Bronnikova

Autumn Clark - SewPaperPaint <<< That's me!  You are here.  :)

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