Bound in Creativity: A Mixed Media Journal Project

1. Introduction: Hello, everyone. In this class, we're going to create a mini art journal that's as unique as your creative style. Starting with a vibrant mixed media cover, we'll use watercolor acrylic paints and paint markers to add layers of color and detail, incorporating beautiful stencils for texture and design. Inside we'll sew a signature of pages to the cover using an easy chain-link bookbinding method, perfect for beginners and experienced makers alike. I'm Denise Love, an artist and creative educator, and I'm excited to bring you this fun and exciting dive into handmade art journals. This project combines painting, mixed media and bookbinding techniques into one creative adventure. Get ready to bring your journal to life. So let's get started. 2. Class Project: Last project is to create your own mini mixed media art journal from start to finish. Begin by designing a unique layered cover using any supplies you have on hand, including watercolor, acrylic paint, paint markers, and stencils to add depth and texture. Then assemble the journal by sewing a signature of pages inside using a simple yet beautiful chain-link bookbinding method. This project is perfect for exploring color and texture and bookmaking while crafting a one of a kind journal for sketching, collage or creative play. Share your finished journal and the process photos to inspire others in their creative journey. 3. Supplies & Getting Started: Take a look at the supplies that you could consider using for this project. I definitely encourage you to use what you have. This is a fun project that could be used with any papers and any paint supplies that you have on hand. Then we do need a few bookmaking tools, but they're small and inexpensive. You'll need some waxed thread. That's what I find works best with the bookbinding so that the thread um, doesn't tear over the years from use and stuff. I like the wax the book thread comes in several different colors. You could use embroidery thread if you wanted to, but it's not wax, so it's not my favorite. But this is what I look for there. Also, you'll need a great big embroidery needle, the great big ones like an upholstery needle or embroidery needle that works best. With the bookbinding, you'll need an because we're going to be punching some holes and a bone folder so that we can press everything nice and tight. That's my book supplies that we will be using in class. We'll also need some paper for the inside and some paper for the cover. This is basically the setup that we're going to be creating. We have a set of papers on the inside and then we'll have a cover that we paint, and then we'll have it stitched together. And I like a flap, so I made a flap for this one, and that's the format that we're looking for. So any kind of paper that you want to use on the inside is fine. I also have some other art journals that I've made in the past. This one is randomly all my wax papers and kind of junk papers where I just had paint run off, and I can go back now and add to these and collage and paint and do fun stuff. So that could be, you know, a fun option, and it's a cover that I've painted, and it was just kind of leftover a leftover sheet. You could also do this is an old a photograph portfolio or folio cover that I've got some ribbon on, and you can do things like fun pockets and stash art. You can do wax paper, different papers, handmade papers, vintage papers. So you can do art that you've already painted. You can use antique papers in there. You can print off copies of antique papers and use that if you don't want to use old papers like the originals. But that's another option of your papers that you could look for. Another thing that I've done in another book that I've made is use the vintage papers as, say, the outside and some handmade papers further in, and this is made with a nicer watercolor paper because I like to paint on nicer watercolor papers in my journals, and you can see different papers and fun elements that I have included in my signatures for that. So you can get as creative as you can imagine. So for this project, I'm going to be using some handmade papers from the Leather Village. Uh, you can use any of your watercolor papers that you've got on hand. What I liked about these is they were already torn, and it was a fun size, and I wanted to try it out. And because I already have this in my paper stash, I decided I'm going to pull that out, and I'm going to use that. I'm also going to be using a piece of Canson XL water paper. To do my cover. So if you want to do the whole book in Canson paper, you can certainly do that. You don't have to have different papers. I'm going to be using a color palette. I like pulling a color palette initially when I do stuff. This is from the color cube volume two by Sarah Renee Clark what I find by picking a color palette. You can find color palettes online very easily. Um what I find is this gets me over one of the hardest parts of art making for me, and that's What color can I use? Where should I even go with this to get started? Even though I may veer off of this color palette some, I do like it to help me narrow everything down because I like all the colors and all the supplies and when you have too many options, you can almost be paralyzed from too many options. This helps me narrow those down into a direction. I'm using today, I'm going to be using the KatakiGanzi Tam Bi paints. This is the art nouveau set and the 48 piece set. I have both sets because I like to do color palette challenges and I have pulled colors out of each one of those to at least get us started. I'm going to go for 47 raw umber deep, 46 burnt sienna and you can use any brand of paints that you got. I just like these. I've got four oh two Mars yellow. I've got 44 yellow ochre. I pulled a pinky color out for this 17 coral pink. It's as close as I could get and I liked it. Then I thought, what if we had a pop of a color in here like Rose matter Deep number 36. I might not like it and I might like it, but that is where those thoughts pushed me like, what about this? What about that? Then move this off my table. Then I'll be using a variety of Joggles stencils. After I paint the cover and get that started, I'll be using some stencils and some mark making tools like markers or pasca pins or anything that you've got that you like to mark make with. But I just have a variety of joggle stencils to pick from, and I actually have a set, which is part of the Elizabeth St. Hilaire Joggles set. And these are patterns for laying her stencil collection, and they are available individually on the site also. I have some of these already, but I decided to get some fresh new ones because I love stencils and sometimes I just beat them up, so I thought, t's start fresh. But look at all these patterns. H. Oh, my gosh. These are so exciting. I can't I can't wait to use these. So then I got a fun flower one a why not? And then I got a fun Jim Tim Holt's stencil 'cause I like the ones that look like bricks and patterns and stuff like that. So that is the direction that I am going in today's video. I'm going to have lots of options to pick from. And let's just get started painting. So this is one of the bigger pads. It's a 12 by 18 size. And I know that with the paper that I've picked and played with a little bit and then had in my closet. I know that this is supposed to be seven by 10 ", but it's various sizes. Seven ish by ten or 11 " ish. But what I want to do is pick out my pages that I want to use as my signature because I'm going to kind of use it as a rough measuring tool for our books. So one, two, three, I'm going to make six pages, four, five, six, that'll give me six pages to paint on. And this is 100% cotton paper, which I like to use cotton papers. So anytime I see, like, a handmade paper or cotton paper or anything that's like got some pretty edges on it. I can also use the Honamule which is my favorite paper to paint on. I could also use the arches. I can also use the Canson paper and just tear all the pages out and give myself a lovely set of torn pages to work with. But I'm going to fold that in half and that's going to tell me what size my book is going to be. I'm just going to use my bone folder to get that really, really nice and folded. Then this is going to give me kind of just a rough eyeball of is this paper big enough for what I want to do? And so I already can see that if this is the front and then this would be, say, the back, then this would be the flap cover that I'm wanting, and I can then choose how much of that flap I want to use. So it's perfect. This paper is very obviously larger than what I actually need. And I did that on purpose because that way I can paint all over it and not really worry about what I'm doing. I can do any design I want. I can play and just have fun. And then we can make stencils all over it, and then we can pick our favorite section of that basically. I'm actually going to get started. I'm just going to wet down my paint. I'm going to be using my Princeton Neptune brushes, this great big one because I love it. This one I actually have something stuck in it. Let me just see. There we go now. Then I've just got some water off to the side here. I'm just going to paint the whole thing and then we're going to have to let that dry. But I also want to paint the inside. What I might do is paint the inside with some acrylic paint because I've also pulled some paints out. I've got some acrylic paints out here in the blick paint because I like the I like the matte paint. This is a black mat off white. I've got some brown. Then I was thinking this deep pink might be fun. I'm almost wondering if I just go ahead and let's just get crazy. Let's paint one side, and then we'll go back. That was a lot of paint. Then I will go back with the watercolor on the front. This is the back side. I'm not trying to get anything specific here. I'm just wanting something crazy. What if we take a Bear. And brayer all this on and get the whole thing painted, something wild and crazy. And then we'll have to let that dry and then I'll flip it over and paint on the other side. And remember, I'm not going edge to edge with my book cover, so I don't have to paint edge to edge either, really. I'm just thinking that this would give us a fun, interesting, weird combo of colors using the brayer. And I could have even got it a whole lot thinner with putting the paint on a sheet of paper on the side and done that. That could have also been where we went. But this is what I did, so it's where we're going. And then once I've got that painted and covered where I want it, we're just going to have to stop a moment and let this dry. That's pretty cool, actually. If this is the inside of our book, that's neat. So paint the inside however you want. You don't have to do this. I just had an idea in my mind this would be fun. I'm going to maybe grab some wax paper so I don't paint onto my table. And then we're going to once you've got the inside painted with a paint, go ahead and let that dry and then we're going to flip that over and use it and paint the other side. I'll be right back. This is almost dry and I was thinking and I went back after it started to dry and ran the brayer across it again to pick up some paint, which is pretty cool because now you can see some underlayer in there. But I thought, this is the inside still? What if we stenciled on the inside this is focus on the positive by Elizabeth St. Hlai on the jog site. What if we did an all over stencil pattern on this, then that would be a fun inside pattern on here. I actually like to stencil with little sponges. You can use whatever favorite stencil thing that you have. I'm just thinking maybe off white or cream color. I'm not looking for perfection here. I'm just looking to cover all the stencil here and you can use stencil brushes, use whatever your favorite stencil thing is, I got a dry sponge and I'm using a thin layer of paint just to get an all over, very slight texture on here so that it's not just this pattern. Let's just see what that looks like. I'm just going to hold it down. What? That's exactly what I wanted. Oh, my gosh. I'm going to go ahead and do the whole thing here, and then I'm going to let it dry. You've got a couple layers that you'll be doing and then you'll want the layers to dry before you move on to the next thing. That's what I'm going to do. 4. Painting Cover: Alright, so this is now completely stenciled, and it's dry enough. It's mostly dry. And I'm going to flip it over, and I'm gonna paint on the front side. And it does not even matter that I've managed to somehow magically get paint on this side because it's just going to add to what we're doing. And it's not even gonna not even going to matter. Just be aware when you're painting like I did, you may get some paint on both sides. But to me, it's not a big deal. Then what I'm going to do with this side. It's like extra mark making before you get started is I'm going to use my watercolors and I'm going to paint the entire sheet of paper just like I did with the backside and then I'm going to stencil and then I'm going to mark make maybe with some extra paint markers or whatever. You could do the mark making after the fact, if you wanted to cut the book cover out and then mark make after you could your choice there on how you choose to layer up the different elements that I'm working through class. But I like to do it blindly almost because then I can just be surprised with where we ended up, which I think is the fun part about painting a big piece of paper and then cutting it up. I love to cut stuff up and then you're always amazed or surprised where you ended up when you're done. So I'm painting the whole big thing with the colors that we picked and then we'll be mark making. I'm just going to go ahead and continue on here with just big splashes of color. You could do a pattern. You could do like I'm doing and do big splashes of color. You could be very mindful and cut the cover and then paint something specific. I mean, it really is just skis, the limits on a project like this. Let's move into something else. I'm going to go ahead and continue layering and just see where we end up. I mean, once you get it covered, you could stop and let that dry. You could then do some additional mark making. You could come back in with a brush and make marks or a pencil or something water soluble. You'll notice when I hold a paint brush painting with watercolors, I hold it way back at the back and loose like this rather than holding it real tight like a pencil because this lets me be a lot looser and more fun with how I'm painting than I would normally get if I were holding it real tight and real controlled. So a lot of people mention the way I hold a paint brush when I'm painting, but I'm looking for big abstract painty things. I want that to be very defined. I'm going to get a couple of pieces of cardboard out and do something fun. I'll be right back. Hold a couple of things out of my box of stuff I just randomly save. I've got a piece of corrugated cardboard. I did not tear this top off like this. It came like that. It was packaging that somebody sent me with something in it like a book or something. What I love about the corrugated part is when we push that down and then set something on top of it and then let the watercolor dry, we'll get grooves. So cool. I also have shelf liner, which is super cool, which I could go ahead and put down right here and then we'll get pooling of the watercolor as it's drying. You want to do this while it's wet. Then I got some other waffle packaging that I thought, let's just try that. What I'm going to do is let these all sit here. I'm going to set something on top of it so that they flatten out and then I will be back in a moment when this is drier and we'll see what patterns we randomly got from just some packing material that you can save every time you get a box of packaging. All right. I hope we're dry. We're going to see. I went away I made myself go away for a minute. Okay, this one wasn't squished down enough, so we got a tiny, tiny bit of pattern, but this one, this makes me excited every time I do it because it creates lovely lines in your piece. This one creates lovely dots. So if you got the shelf liner, grab a piece of that. Look at that. Okay. I've got some wet spots where it's pooled, so I'm going to dry that real quick and I'll be right back. Alright, I've got this dry. And now I'm kind of thinking, let's see, the other side still fun. Now I'm kind of thinking, like, look at this when we fold this. Can you see that as the outside and the inside? How fun is that? Ah. Not quite the color way I was thinking it ended up on the inside, but, man, it's still cool. Now I'm kind of thinking, What if we did a little bit of stencil work? And this one is the Elizabeth St. Hilaire Argyle stencil, but look how cool it is and it's random, a bit like what we had underneath. I want it to be subtle. Let me grab a little piece of wax paper. I just kind of keep this wax paper stuff on my desk. What if we did a lighter pink. We're still working in our similar color palette. I'm almost wondering if we throw a surprise color on here at the end if we'll like it. I've got paint on my fingers. There we go. I don't know where that came from. I'm thinking a little bit of argyle in there add to our pattern. I've got some orange. And also have this cream. We could do some little mixes there and a dry sponge and maybe a little bit of pattern and then thinking off the cuff here, but what if we do this flour one in a blue? The reason why I say that we can test it out and then we can change our mind. But if you look at the color wheel and you come over here to the blue, right directly across from that is the orange. That's its complimentary color. That's the color that's going to make it pop the most. I'm wondering what if I'm just going to mix all these in my sponge and get, like, a fun different pattern going in here. But what if we did that pop of a blue flower? Like, maybe I don't know. Maybe we'll hate it, but I'm just kind of spitballing some ideas here. So a lot of times on the stenciling, I don't go wall to wall. I just kind of meander with it and just see. That's kind of fun what we end up with. And so that's where I'm going. And because I'm doing this on, you know, a large random sheet, it's really not going to be able to tell what our final cover is going to have on it until, you know, we pull that cover till we cut the cover out, basically. Who fun. Alright, that's different. I think I'm gonna stop there. Okay. I'm kind of wondering are we gonna like the blue? So this is the Italian wedding stencil also by Elizabeth St. Hilair. I might just test it in a corner here. Put a little paint down. This is green, blue deep. This was orange deep. This was blue, red light, and this was off white in those Blick paints, which I like because they're not shining. I'm going to do one down here and see what this even looks like. And if we're going to love it or not. Then a lot of times what I do on top of stencils is marker work with a pasca pen. After that, I'm feeling that. What do you think? Are you feeling that pop of blue? I think I am. I like that flower a lot. But I'm going to go ahead and do a spread of all the different flowers and just let it do its thing. Then I might mark make on top of this with some paint pens to give them some detail. I like to mark make on top of it to give them a pop. And make them feel less like a stencils, more like a painterly thing that you did. Okay. I like that. I love that. Okay, good choice. Good choice. Okay, let's do it on this side. And just play. Time to just play. Okay, I'm going to dry that real quick and then I'm going to mark make on top of this with a paint pen. And I just throw my sponges into some water until I can get them to the sink, and that way the paint doesn't dry in your little sponge and you just keep using those over and over. That's the little round artist sponges. I just cut them up and use those like that. Okay. And whatever paint markers you have are fine. Paska markers would work good. I also have these little Arctic acrylic markers that I like, and I like them because they have so many different colors. Move this paint out of the way. So any paint markers that you've got that you think are the right colors, you can just go for that. I like these because there's more color choices, which I feel like I want more color choices. So this is the Arctic acrylic markers, which are just as good as the pasca. There's several brands out there that you could play with. And then I'm just going to decorate and start mark making. I really like it when there's a little pop of gold in the piece, and so I might actually come back on top of this with some gold, and you can use any gold is fine. I got gold pins and some golden iridescent gold paint is good. I might actually stencil just a little bit of gold on top of that. I'm thinking because I like this Tim Holt stencil. Maybe we'll throw a little gold in there in this pattern. Got to where I cut the tops off of these so I can get the stencils out slide them back in. I'd like to put them in a notebook, but I need to be able to tell people what stencils I'm using. This one is Stamper's anonymous layering stencil called sticks STI CKS. I'm just thinking we could either go up and down, kind of feeling up and down. I just want some gold. And it's not going to be a super color, it's going to give a shimmer. That's more of my goal here, which is why I've picked. Oh, yeah. Okay, that's exactly what I wanted. Just the shimmer. I'm going ahead to the outside edges with most of this because once we cut this up, this could be collage material that's left over. So you can keep on using what we cut out. That's why I've gone a little bit to the edges there. I feel like maybe some extra mark making, maybe some dots would be fun. So maybe I'm going to do some white paska dots in here, and then I'll be ready to turn this into a book. All right. Okay, so we could come back later with some more dots, but I think I'm there for now. So what we want to do now is cut this cover out. We just need to decide what part of this cover that we want. I'm going to grab my piece of paper, because what I'm going to do is mark, where do I want that? I'm going to cut that as a big long strip, so I'll be right back. 5. Assembling Book: Alright, let's do this. I've let this dry a moment. I know that this is the size book that I want. You can use any side that you want. This could also be the inside, and that could be the outside. You can just kind of decide as you're going like, how did you want it. And I kind of wanted this part to be the front, so I'm kind of thinking this strip right here. And so I'm just going to put this right here and take a pencil and kind of mark where I want this. On both sides, just to the edge of the paper. Like, I don't want it to be huge. I don't want it to be short. I do want it to mostly cover the edges. I don't mind if a little of this pops out, but I do kind of want this whole thing to be the right size. And Okay. And you may be off a smidge. Don't get hung up on. Is it exact exact? Is it perfect perfect? I mean, I want it to be straight and beautiful, but I don't get stuck. So just measure it as best you can. And then I've got a big metal ruler so that the blade doesn't cut the ruler. If you're using wood rulers, then the blade could just kind of go right into the wood and cut the wood instead of the paper. I've done that before. And it's not thick paper, so I just go ahead and run all the way down. Look how pretty this leftover piece is. You see how it doesn't even matter that we had paint on this before. It just became part of the decoration. Or at least it did for me. And then we're gonna cut this side. And I'm cutting this on a cutting mat. It's not on my table. Oh, that's gorgeous. This you can make little artist trading cards out of. You can make them into collage material. You could cut a piece of this to be a piece of art inside of our piece. It could be a pocket inside of our piece. Let's just see if this is about the same size. So it's close. We're not too far off. I'm good with that. So now we need to decide where we're going to fold this. And I was wanting this right here to be the front side. So what we're going to do is fold that right there. So that it's right there, and it's the correct kind of size. And I'm just going to take my bone folder. And if you're afraid you're going to smear anything, you could take a piece of wax paper or something to do that. And I'm just pressing that edge nice and tight. And there we go. So now we've got one fold. And look how cool that is when you open it, and that's the inside. What? Now, I almost want this to be an envelope. So I want this to come down like this so that it has some area to flip over and then we can cut this kind of decorative. And so I'm just kind of eyeballing it here. We could also take our bone folder and a ruler and score that a little bit. If you've got a scoring tool like this fun little device here that's got ridges in it that could help you with your scoring. So if you've got a scoring thing. You could use that. I'm not going to use it today because I know not everybody is going to have that. But what I'm kind of thinking is we could just go right here and just decide where exactly do we want that fold? Because I want it to fold and be There we go. Let's just do that right there. This is just eyeballing it. Doesn't have to be perfect. G to fold it right there. I'm going to press that down with my bone folder. And I'm standing up when I do that, so I get a really good crease. And then we can just check it. Folds beautifully. And now, what if we make this a scalloped edge or something? I'm kind of thinking Look at this. Oh, so pretty. I'm kind of thinking, and we can even We could even make this like a pocket inside of here if we wanted. Totally filling that, then we'll have a pocket right there. Oh, my gosh. Okay, so to make a scalloped edge, I feel like I just need a piece of watercolor paper or another piece of paper. We'll just say, This is just a piece of copy paper cut about the size of our piece. 'Cause look at this little trick. Um, I'm just going to do this here because I don't want it. I actually want to use some of this. Actually, let's just mark the whole thing. Okay, so I'm going to use this in a second. Okay, so part of this is going to be my template for the holes. So I'm going to go ahead and fold this and use this part for my whole template. And I'm just going to cut this part off because I'm going to use this as my cover template. So what if we just fold this in half and you could cut a curve out. You could cut yourself a triangle out. I'm kind of thinking, What if we did ourself a curve? Just something just kind of So we could do that. That's kind of I don't know about that. Is that enough? I don't think that's enough. So maybe if I go, Oh, let's do that. Okay, and I folded it in half, so both sides will be the same when we're done. Okay, so let's do this. This is gonna be my flap template. Hmm. Look at that. Oh, that's pretty. Okay. Oh, that's pretty. Look at that. So you can do the flap template anyway you want. But I was just kind of thinking, Wouldn't it be fun? To have something that just wasn't just square. And then we just got to decide, like, how big do you want the flat? Because, you know, here's the edge of the book. We want it to be a little shorter than the edge of the book, definitely, but do we want it to be huge? Maybe not. So I'm kind of thinking way back here. Um, yeah, I'm kind of thinking there. So then you can just draw it with a pencil and cut it with your scissors. And then, if you've got any pencil mark leftover, you could just come back with a little eraser and just clean the edge. Look at that. Look at that. Okay, now let's assemble our book. So I've made a little template here. It's going to be the size of our pieces, and that's going to be my whole template. So I'm going to mark the holes and then we'll punch the holes. So our book is 7.5. And I kind of want enough holes there to be able to show the stitching that we're going to do on the edge, which is going to be super easy. So I kind of want enough Enough on the edge. Let's see. What I've decided to do because it's 7.5, I centered the paper on the ruler, and then I cut them at three quarters of an inch from each end. So if we move that back to the original measurement, we've got three quarters of an inch from each end, and then I marked it at 1 " intervals apart. I've got one at three quarter and three quarter, and then inch inch, inch, inch, inch, inch. I think that's what I want because the chain stitch is really fun. So what I'm going to do first is mark my cover. I've got my all here. We might use a clip to really get this in the right spot. I want to get it right there on the edge. I've got it right on the edge of that. Now, with it slightly folded up, I'm going to punch the awl at an angle going straight through that piece right there and make a hole right where each mark is, and that will help me line up the holes when I get to the pages that we've already picked and folded in half. We'll be ready for that. So I'm going to use the same template on both of those. And then you can see I've come through the backside right there. So I've got that ready. Now we're going to do the same thing on the paper. We picked six pieces of paper. Yeah, and you want to make sure they're exactly where you want them straight where you want them. Then again, right up to the edge of the fold. I'm going to kind of center it because remember, the covers a tiny bit bigger than the pages. So I want these I want this to be centered, but it's going to hang over a tiny bit on the top and the bottom because covers a smidge larger. Now I've got this right there even where I want it, and maybe I'll just clip it on both sides. With a little bulldog clip to make sure that that doesn't move. Then I'm going to go right through the center of just like I did with the other slightly at an angle to make sure that I'm coming through over here at the angle of the cover rather than to the side. I'm just going to go straight through all those pieces of paper and it doesn't have to be perfect. Close is good enough, but slightly at an angle. O. Don't get hung up on perfection at this point. You just as good as you can. It's a homemade art book. It's meant to be quirky and fun. There we go. And the last hole right there, poking straight through. Now, what color? What color for the thread? I'm thinking the orange or we could do pink or brown. But I'm feeling orange. I'm going to keep these clip together but move this template out of here. Just so they don't move while I'm deciding. We've got that comes around. Gorgeous and I'm thinking that I want the orange. Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to cut a piece of thread about three times the length of that cover and give myself plenty of room. Then I've got a long embroidery needle. The bigger the needle, the better. You could use a curved needle if you want, but you don't really need to for this type book. I like the straight needle. What we're going to do is thread the needle. I'm going to tie a knot on one end and just leave a little tail there. I like to do a double knot, so I'm going to tie a double knot to make sure that we've got enough there. Then this is basically going to be the up. Then we're going to go through the paper. Let me make sure I got enough there. We're going to go through the holes in the paper very easy and then through the first hole in the book and pull that right through. You're going to love how easy. They're going to come right back through the second hole of the book and second hole of our paper. You love how easy this is. Then I'm going to move this to the side a little bit. We don't want our needle to catch in the thread in the middle of the thread because then it just doesn't move like it's supposed to. All right, so back through the first hole, let me I'm moving all around here. Hang on. Back through the first hole, I'm trying not to snag the middle of the thread. There we go. We are going to just make a loop back through the second hole. Basically, what this does is it makes the first hole be a fake chain link, basically. So right back through the second hole, and then you can kind of pull it taut, not so tight that you're wrinkling the paper, but tight enough that you get it to do what you want. And then now right through the third hole, coming right out the backside and then then this is what you're going to do. You're going to thread the needle through that set of threads that are already there, and that's going to make our chain. Look how pretty that is. Back up through that hole that you just came through. There we go. And then just pull. You might have to pull from the outside, but you want to get it where all your threads are nice and taut. There we go. So just tug until you've got a nice tight loop there, basically. And then we're ready to go through the next one. And again, you should be right on the money with where that comes out. And again, just through the thread, make a loop, and back up through the hole that we just came through. And just pull it tau. And so we're making a really lovely chain there on the back side. So now right through the next hole. And see, these are really pretty when you got enough holes to see the chain. You could do less. A pamphlet stitch just has three, two at the end, and one in the middle. What I like about this versus, say, the pamphlet stitch, pull that tight while you're going is the interest that this adds on the spine. B through. Now we're ready for the next hole. I just like the extra interest that something like a chain stitch gives you, right there, through that and make a chain and I'm just trying to pull it as I'm going right back through that hole. And then I'm going to make our last chain. So right through that last hole, make your chain. And then right back through that hole. Now we are ready to tie that off. I just loop it underneath that loop right there and then pull it through this loop that we just created, and then I pull it all the way down to the end and I like a double knot. I'm just going to loop it in there one more time, and then back through that loop I just created and then gently pull it towards the edge and there we go. Now we have a completely sewed together book with a cover. At this point, you could decorate your cover even more if you're like, oh, I need some extra pieces. You could also use some ribbon actually have some ribbon right here and it's a good color. This is some sorry ribbon. I had this as a photography prop, and I thought, this would be perfect. We could make ourself a little fun ribbon closure with a couple of loops and we could either so a button right here, like a vintage button and tie this around the button to be our loop and loop it around. Or we could just glue this to the inside, glue it just right there, and then we'd be able to then loop it around and then just tie it off. That's another option. I think I'm going to use a button, so I'll be right back. Okay, so I actually have my grandmother's button box because she was a sewer and I have a whole bunch of buttons in here, but I also have some buttons that I've purchased, and I got this button here and you can get bigger ones. These came from Joanne fabrics. This came from Hobby Lobby, I believe. So look around. Here we go. It's Armia came from Joanne. It's this organics brand. Um, So these are the little organics buttons, and they were not expensive. And so I went when the buttons were on sale and got some buttons. That would have been a fun one. I didn't see that one in there. But I like big buttons. These are vintage ones out of my grandmother's stash of buttons in here. So any kind of button would be fine. I thought this pink one was kind of cool. So any button would be fine. But I particularly love the great big buttons. And so, and because that's a curve button at the fabric stores, you'd be able to find something like that. I just took that same thread, that same orange thread, and sewed it on to the book. And because these are knots and it's wax thread, I'm just going to trim those, and that's just going to be the inside of that, and it's fine. It looks nice. Look how pretty that is. Oh, my gosh. Now you could just take something like this. And either do a little loop like that and not even tie it to it, but look how good that worked out just like that. Or you could just tie this to the button up underneath, tie it there. And then it can be more permanent and then, you'll be able to loop this around and then loop it shut. And, you know, give yourself enough ribbon at the beginning for the book to get fatter, you know, depending on what it is that you decide to do in the book. So you want to give it a little bit of leeway so it can get a little bit fatter. And so maybe not tie your ribbon on permanently at the very beginning. But really, you don't even have to tie it on. You could just do like I just did and give it enough room to loop around like that and then pull it around, and there you go. And you got a pretty ribbon tying your book together. Look how gorgeous that is. Okay, so I love loving our yummy chain stitch. And then when we open this up, got little pieces of thread. Now you can see the inside is actually finished. And we could have painted it after the fact. If you don't want to paint it first, you can paint it after you've made your book. And now we have all of these lovely pages to paint. And I made mine with just the pages themselves without the decorative paper or the old papers I've really discovered that I like to paint in these and make them into a whole book of my little paintings. And so that's where I've gone with this. You could definitely make it a junk journal and have all kinds of papers, or you could have some other papers in here, you know, dispersed throughout, which is what I do on a lot of my other books. You could also go ahead and glue in something to the backside here and make a pocket, just glue around the edges and have a pocket back there. Or you could have even a pocket down the side where you glued it on three sides and you could have a tuck pocket with your extra leftover, if you wanted this right here is particularly beautiful. So that would be fun. So just have fun with this and get creative and mark make and find yourself a fun closure and ribbon for the outside. I hope you enjoy making a delightful, lovely little handmade art journal, and I'll see you guys next time. 6. Final Thoughts: I hope this project has inspired you to explore the magic of mixed media and bookbinding in a fun and approachable way. Whether you use your mini journal for sketches, notes or creative experiments, it's a reflection of your unique artistic style. Remember, there are no rules. Each layer, color, and mark adds to your creative journey. I'd love to see your finished journals, so feel free to share your work and continue exploring new ways to make art in your own. Keep creating and most importantly, enjoy the process.