Roll Your Own

This is the mess of innards that will be assembled into my Italy Adventure travel journal.  Despite the focus on Venice -- which I'll likely not ever see with my own two eyes -- I'll be including bits & bobs and photos from my trip to Florence/Umbria/Lake Como in 2007.  The covers are the two pieces of board currently covered in mattress-ticking paper.  Finished journal will be 7.5 x 9.5 inches, horizontal.

I wanted to show you some things I've prepared for inside the journal.  You may be interested in doing some of this yourself at some point.  First, above, this is one way I've been creating clear pockets for some of my journals.  I cut a page protector in half width wise, then stitch scraps of paper and/or fabric along three edges with decorative stitches.  These will be included along with other folios of paper when I create the signatures; the folded left edge of each will be bound right in to the journal.  You can also make them narrower and stitch right onto individual pages.

We have a limited accessibility to cool scrapbook cardstock on the North Coast -- most of the stuff available at the three stores is not my cup of tea.  So I just started color copying the few things I do like that I purchased, onto plain or light colored cardstock.  I'm also copying patterns onto the back of cardstock I bought in pads, sheets that are usually white on the back.

And these three images are transparencies or overlays I printed yesterday.  The patterned papers are underneath.  I used acrylic paint to stamp and stencil right onto transparency sheets.  I have a box of Apollo which I bought several years ago for image transfers, but which, at the rate I'm going, I'll never use up for only the original purpose.

These overlays can be folded in half and used as folios, or cut and stitched to create pockets or use over photos.  Cool, huh?