One of my friends is entering collage this fall. She is very creative and an avid writer, so, knowing her aesthetic, I thought she would appreciate a steampunk journal as a going off to college gift.
This journal was a more little complicated in the putting together than my last couple as I had to aquire some craft supplies I had not used before. Gears, for instance, were not something I had used in previous projects.
But on to the process: I wanted this journal to be usable as a writing journal, so I needed lots of empty pages for writing on. Since plain white pages did not match the rest of the book, I spent a while coffee dying all the blank pages to make them look a little more vintage and in line with the theme.
To prep my cover, first I despined my book of choice, then reinforced the spine with ducktape, and decorated. The photo above is of the inside, which I covered in a map. For the outside, I spray-painted it gold, then layed a thin black cloth over that to create a subtle sheen effect.
Setting the cover aside, I turned to the signatures. I gathered all the pages I was going to use—coffee dyed and patterned—and sorted them into three piles, one for each signature. During this step you should make sure the signatures each get a more or less equal amounts of each type of paper. Otherwise you may end up with a very pretty but not usable signature while also having a slightly boring signature which is practically all writing paper.
Finishing the signatures, I could now sew them in. As you could tell from the first photo, I decided to cover the binding on the outside instead of letting it show, which is my normal. After sewing I added any smaller decorations I wanted on the inside, decorated the outside, and, as a final touch, included a steampunk watch I picked up previously while visiting family.
As an additional note: the ribbon and key you see going vertically across the front are not attached to the front as they are the book band holding the book shut when not in use.
What did you think? Although this was harder than my last one, it was not that difficult when broken into steps. So go ahead, if this notebook interested you, give it a shot and try making one yourself!