Seaside Journal Tutorial

Hello and welcome to my blog today! It is in the middle of summer, and today I have a seaside journal to share with you, made with Sizzix dies by Eileen Hull. Every summer, I make a mini book to document our summer in, with photos words and ephemera. 

During July, the Eileen Hull Inspiration Team is making projects with the Journal die and other dies in the Heartfelt collection.

I really like the tall shape of the Journal die and it is so easy to make a wide variety of books and journals using the die. For my book, I used papers by Prima, mainly from the St. Tropez and French Riviera collections. They fit really well with the sea theme and using patterned papers makes for a very quick assembly of the journal.

To start, you need to die cut two covers from mat board or chipboard.

I also die cut covers from patterned paper and then glued in place. You could do everything in one go, if you glue papers to the mat board first and wait until the glue is dry to die cut them. This wood plank paper comes from the St. Tropez collection.

Sand the edges of the journal.

I used A4 pads by Prima, and simply cut them at 8.1 in (21 cm) and folded. I also cut plain cream papers.

Round the corners on all the pages and place them into three signatures of about six pages. Stitch down the middle with a sewing machine. Or you could staple them.

For the cover, I die cut a label with one of the die cuts on the Journal die, as well as a tag from the Luggage Tag die. The corners were rounded on the other two pieces.

Die cut flowers from patterned paper with the Stitchy Flowers and Leaf set.

I wanted some pockets on the inside pages and die cut the Recipe Card & Label from patterned papers to use as a pocket.

I also cut some nice parts of leftover papers out and rounded the corners. These will be embellishments in the book.

There are instruction on the packaging of the die for how you can bind your book. I used an elastic string

Tie the string through a button on the outside of the spine, leaving enough string so that you can use it to as a closure mechanism for the book.

Tuck the signatures under the elastic string to bind the book. This also makes it easy to take a signature out if you, for instance, want to stamp in it or sew, or to make it easier to write.

You can mix die cut and premade flowers for a fun effect.

Leo also likes the flowers.

Layer the tag, label, sentiment, and flowers on the cover.

Here's a view of the book open. There is plenty of space for photos and journaling.

Simply tape the recipe cards along the sides and bottom to form a pocket. Tuck more recipe cards inside as well as the 3 x 4 St Tropez journaling cards.

Here's another pocket. It can also hold photos and ephemera, such as tickets.

I like the mix of plain and patterned papers on the inside.

For the center folds in each signature, I used these types of nice papers with lots of details, that didn't work if you only saw half the page, so they needed to be full spreads.

Here and there I added text and embellishments, but there is plenty of space for more.

I like the distressed page to the left, with the anchors.

And a cute boat.

The old city papers also worked well, since our summer activities also take part in the city.

I love the vintage image at the top.

Here's another center spread.

And one more pocket.

 

And my journal is ready to be filled with summer memories. You can of course make a journal for any theme you can think of. My previous one is a nature sketching book, focusing on trees. You can find that tutorial here, if you want more inspiration. Last year's Summer Memories book is here, and the one I made in 2015 can be found here.

Don't forget to check out all the journals that the team has created. There are so many different ways in which to use the great Journal die.

I have mentioned it before, but in case someone missed it, you can also find lots of die cutting inspiration with Eileen's dies in her e-book Die Cutting Magic by Bella Crafts.

Die Cutting Magic is full of inspirational projects using Eileen's dies and embossing folders by Sizzix. It is a really great mix of projects: 3-D home decor and storage items, flowers, cards, mini-books, wearable art, holiday projects, baby and wedding items, scrapbooking layouts and much more, for many different themes. Over 100 projects and 154 pages full of inspiration, both for beginner and advanced papercrafters. I am happy to have eight projects in the book, of which four are tutorials. You'll also find projects by Eileen, the other Inspiration Team members, and a whole bunch of other designers.

Thank you for stopping by today!

Happy summer crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

Sizzix ScoreBoards XL Die - Journal	Sizzix JOURNAL ScoreBoards die	Sizzix Thinlits Die Set 13PK - Stitchy Flowers & Leaf	Sizzix STITCHY FLOWERS AND LEAF	Sizzix Bigz Die RECIPE CARD AND LABEL
Sizzix Bigz Die - Recipe Card & Label	Sizzix ScoreBoards Die - Tags, Luggage	Sizzix LITTLE SIZZLES MAT BOARD 6x13 WHITE	Sizzix Little Sizzles - 6" x 13" Mat Board Pack, 6 White Sheets	Prima Marketing A4 Paper ST. TROPEZ
Prima Marketing ST. TROPEZ 3 X 4 Journaling Notecards	Prima Marketing ST. TROPEZ 4 X 6 Journaling Notecards	Prima Flowers A4 Paper Pad FRENCH RIVIERA	Prima Flowers A4 Paper Pad VINTAGE EMPORIUM	Prima Marketing ISLE MARINA St. Tropez Flowers
We R Memory Keepers Cropadile CORNER CHOMPER	Tim Holtz Tonic MINI SNIPS	Tim Holtz Distress COLLAGE BRUSH SET	3M Scotch ACID FREE 0.25 Inch x 36 Yard REFILL	Big Shot Machine
Sizzix BIG SHOT MACHINE Gray And White	Sizzix Accessory - Multipurpose Platform, Standard	Sizzix MULTIPURPOSE PLATFORM STANDARD	Sizzix Accessory - Cutting Pads, Standard, 1 Pair (Purple w/Silver Glitter)	Sizzix MINT Standard Cutting Pads
Sizzix Accessory Cutting Pads, Extended	Sizzix CUTTING PAD XL Pair	Tim Holtz SANDING GRIP

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