A Creative Journal

My First Handmade Journal

by Heather Goldsmith on September 22nd, 2005

When I first set out to make my own journal I knew exactly what I had in mind. Making the journal to fit that picture proved more difficult than I expected, though. I love the versatility of a hard cover spiral-bound journal. The book lays flat on the desk or table or can even be turned back so there’s only one page to work on. This is handy when you’re sitting somewhere without a table and need a firm surface for writing or drawing. I also wanted the freedom to paint with watercolours in my journal if the mood struck me. I took all these things into account as I began my handmade journal.

I gathered papers with different hues of purple, my favourite colour, and watercolour paper. The watercolour paper needed to be cut down to the same size as the other papers, but I achieved that easily with a guillotine in the local library. I cut cardboard slightly larger than the papers and covered them in handmade paper. Once the book structure was ready it came to the part where I needed to make spiral binding for the book. This part proved tricky.

First of all I couldn’t afford to have someone do the job for me with a special machine. I searched for suitable wire to do the job myself. Perth craft shops were, as usual, still catching up with what people really wanted to buy and I couldn’t find wire of a suitable gauge. So, I went with what I could find. This turned out to be purple wire in a thin gauge of 24 or 26, which was a lot softer than I felt the job needed. As a compromise I twisted the wire three times around a stick of dowelling and hoped for the best.

Some large and thick elastic bands we had somewhere about the house were handy for keeping the book together while I drilled through the covers and papers several times to make holes for the wire. The most difficult job was threading the wire through these holes. I finished the book off with a label of my name Dawn Vinson made for me in an online swap, and glued on some beads and thread to keep the book closed.

Here’s a picture of the final result.

Having the experience of making my own journal taught me a lot. While I do use the journal occasionally, it hasn’t turned out as a very practical one for me. The soft wire bends too easily which prevents me from taking the journal out and about, unless I’m particularly careful. This limits my use of the book. Also, once the book is filled I can’t put in more pages, which is a shame considering I went to all that trouble making the kind of book I found so aesthetically pleasing.

I found a workable solution, though. I’ll be back with more on that soon, but please share your first handmade journal stories in the comments section.

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