DT Tutorial by Becky

Transparency Art Journal

I am so inspired by the beautiful work that Dina creates and I have been contemplating creating an art journal for myself. A unique journal for those days when I have thoughts to ponder or issues to resolve, a place to keep my heart safe and inspired. This notebook needs to be easy to clean, and have a way to let me take the pages out and put them back in so that I can work on them individually without worrying about damaging other pages. After some thinking and planning I came up with a solution that works for me, and I thought it might inspire others who would want to create their own personalized art journal as well.
I started by cutting a 12” wide by 9” tall piece of the blue Mini Bicycles transparency, two Tim Holtz D rings in the smaller size (you could use three if you liked) and a piece of ribbon in my favorite color of green.
I used my Scor-Pal to score at 5 ¼” and 6 ¾” on the transparency, this gives me an 1 ½” binding area, plenty of room to fill up those pages with dimension and texture and to fit the 1 ¼” width of the D ring.
Using a ruler and a permanent marker I made small dots on the binding area where I would be cutting slits for my ribbon. The marks were made at 1 ½” and an 1 ¾” from each of the edges.
Use a sharp craft knife to make the cuts. Be sure to cut on an appropriate surface. The Scor-Pal is great because of its self healing insert.
Thread ribbon through one of the slits.
Then thread through the D ring and through the other slit.
Tie in a bow on the back.
For the inserts in my journal I wanted to use manila, it is a great surface that takes abuse and lots of wet layers but still holds it shape, So I went into my office supply stash and pulled out a few legal sized manila envelops and cut them at 4 ½” wide and 8 ¾” tall. I didn’t trim the tops, I liked how the edges were all in varying cuts and shapes.
Mark the place you want to punch on one of the sheets, mine are an 1” from the bottom and top edges and ¼” from the edge. Punch using a hole punch or similar tool, I used my Crop-o-Dile so I could do quite a few at one time.
Now the pages for your new art journal are ready to be inserted!
To use and enjoy remove a page to work on and then put it back in when you are done. Also making pages from other transparencies, bits of favorite patterned papers and other odds and ends lets you make this your own, so enjoy your creative journey! B-

Comments

[donna!ee]

awesome, awesome, awesome! i've recently discovered transparencies and had no idea of their many uses. thank you much for sharing, blest be! :)

[Kimmy]

great project!

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Transparency Art Journal I am so inspired by the beautiful work that Dina creates and I have been contemplating creating an art journal for myself. A unique journal for those days when I have thoughts to ponder or issues to...

[Melinda]

This is an inspirational idea. I've been wondering what to do with all those manila folders. Great idea for the transparencies, too. I have a lot of them because they are beautiful, but I don't use them. I will now.