Tutorial Thursday: The Decorated Journal Cover

Today's photo-heavy post will explain how to remove and replace the covers of your wire-bound journal after embellishing them. By now your art journals are probably beginning to fill with gorgeous thoughts, images and text. If not, today's tutorial will jump start a brand new journal for you. Let's get to it!

Begin with a wire-bound journal of any size. 

Open it to the inside back cover where the flat ends of the wire binding meet the "arm" ends of the binding. Carefully spread the "arm" ends away from the flat ends. The goal here is to try to keep the "arm" ends spread evenly all the way down the spine.

Remove the wire binding and set aside along with the paper.

Now to the fun part. I applied gesso to my covers with a brush. I then stamped into the gesso while it was still wet to create a bit of texture. (You know how I love texture.)

Next I brushed on a little paint (Liquitex Teal, Golden Permanent Green Light and Zinc White Fluid Acrylics) and laid a piece of drawing paper over each side, burnishing gently with my hand before lifting the paper. I love this technique for creating texture, but it also created the paper that will become the inside front and back covers.

While those were drying, I mixed  a little Golden Cyan Fluid Acrylic paint into a small amount of Golden Molding Paste on my palette. You can use a paper plate or piece of waxed paper as a substitute. You might also try this same technique with joint compound from the home improvement store with good result.

Then using a palette knife I spread the colored Molding Paste through a stencil onto the dried front cover. When the stencil is lifted, you have a lovely raised pattern on your cover. Repeat this process onto the back cover.

Once the covers are embellished the way you'd like, let the whole thing dry. Or if you are impatient as I was, use your heat tool or blow dryer to speed up the process. 

Now get the binding and paper. Insert the binding first through all the paper.  Bring the flat end of the binding snug against the paper so that the "arm" ends are long. 

Next place the front cover onto the binding. Here's the final trick:  place the back cover onto the binding face down on the front cover. This will insure that your embellished side will be on the outside rather than the inside.

And lastly, bend the "arms" back to the flat ends of the binding. I've found this most easily done by keeping the flat part of the binding flat on the paper. This seems to retain the curve of the binding better. Flip over the back cover and you have your beautiful new journal!

Have lots of fun playing in your journal. I'd love to see some of your creations, too. Send me photos! Because, guess what?

I love you. Bunches.