Although a little time consuming (which might help with the down time at home), it's really not that difficult once you know where to look for instruction and what to do. Once you finish and you hold that journal in your hand, you'd be amazed by the pride and joy you feel knowing YOU created the book sketching and displaying your artwork.
The easiest of the home-made journals are probably the accordion style (similar to what's shown here) where you fold and cut a full sheet of watercolor paper and simply glue mat board either plain or covered in fancy paper to front and back.
One of my favorites and easy to make would be the Traveler's or Midori style journal with paper cut to preferred size and using a thick piece of faux leather for a cover plus elastic bands to hold your paper in place. There are various ways to make the covers from simple leather/faux leather to sewn fabric covers or even hard casings (which I haven't tried yet). My favorite are the fabric sewn covers I made a couple years ago for myself and as gifts for several people.
Not only were the journals fun to make but I so enjoyed making charms to hang for that little added interest.
For me, I love all of the above type journals but I have to say the most rewarding has been the hardbound fabric-covered, hand-sewn journals I've made. I have several posts I've made about the various hand-made journals but thought I'd write this one......an update summary of sorts with a pdf I've created that helps me remember what to do that others might find helpful.
This pdf is specific to creating 5 x 5 1/2" size journals. Except for how to cut full sheets for other sizes, the rest is basic information for any size you decide to go with.
The first two pages of the document is a basic outline I created for myself laying out the steps followed by instructions and images. Besides the tab at the top of my blog named "Bookbinding," there is a link within the document to my post of the most helpful videos I found to create my journals. Sea Lemon is wonderful and easy to follow.
Bookbinding 5x55 BooksCOMP
So if you'd like to find something different to work on.........challenging but fun to do, consider trying your hand at making your own journals for sketching and painting.
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