Project 8: Leather-bound Journals

My husband is an obsessive list maker.  So I thought, what a better gift for him than a personalized leather-bound journal!  If you have every priced these before, you'll understand my shock at the insane price.  But, luckily, Pinterest came through again!  Check out these fun journals that I found at mufn inc: handcrafted and sewn.  It seems like a lot of steps, but it really doesn't take too long.  Especially if you get the glue we bought; it dries very quickly!

Here's what you need:
1. A hard back journal
2. A piece of sheet leather or suede large enough to cover your journal front and back
3. PVC book glue or good fabric glue (I used Fabri-Fix from Hobby Lobby, and it works wonders!)
4. A sheet or two of scrapbook paper (If you have a small journal, you may only need one sheet.  But the larger the journal the more paper you will use.)
5. Scissors


Here's what you do:







1. Line up your journal in the center of your leather or suede.  Begin gluing the fabric to the journal at one-inch strips at a time.  Put the glue on the journal, not the fabric. 





 2.Smooth out the fabric carefully by rubbing your fingers across the journal in one direction.  You don't want to pull the fabric in too many ways and cause wrinkles.

3. Once you have glued the fabric to one side of the journal, flip it over and do the same thing for the back side.  Be sure to pull any wrinkles or folds out of the fabric before you glue it down.
 






4. Open the front cover of the journal.  Using one blade of your scissors, cut a 1-inch slit along the spine, starting at the top.  Do the same thing at the bottom, and on the back cover.  This is where you will fold down the fabric into the spine.







 5. Put a drop of glue on the top of the spine.  Fold the fabric into the slits that you cut on either side of the spine.  Then press against the spine to set the glue.  Do the same for the bottom of the spine.

6. Open your journal to the front cover.  You now need to glue down the flaps of fabric around the edge of the journal.  First, cut the corners off of the fabric.  Don't cut too close to the corner of the journal, though.  You want to be able to cover all of the journal.

  

7. Run a thin strip of glue along the top edge of the journal, and fold the fabric down onto the glue.  Do the same for the bottom edge, and the side edge.  Then, do the same for the back cover.

8. Now you need to glue the scrapbook paper to the inside covers to clean up the fabric edge.  Measure the inside of the journal, making sure to cover any ragged edges of fabric.  Leave the "paper side" of the scrapbook paper a little long, so there will be enough paper to fold into the spine.

9.  Begin gluing the scrapbook paper down just like you did the fabric on the covers.  Glue strips at a time and press out any wrinkles.  Stop at the spine.

10.  Once you get to the spine, fold in a crease and close the journal.  Creating this crease will ensure that your journal will open once it is finished.

11.  Open the journal again and run a thin strip of glue along the spine.  Press the creased scrapbook paper into the spine.  Continue gluing the paper down.

12. When you have glued the paper all the way to the edge of the journal pages, you may have extra paper to cut off.  Turn the paper over and trim the extra away.

13. Now glue a piece of scrapbook paper to the back cover, like you did for the front cover.

And, ta-da!  You have leather-bound journals!  I think I'm going to add a ribbon along the spine to hold your page and attach some embellishments to the front.  They look great, though!

Next, shabby-chic framed sticks!