No Brilliant Reason.

I made a book!  One of my mail art groups wants to have a journal swap so I made a journal.  It's full of mistakes but I'm good with it.  I learned a ton.    It was so fun to do; I see more journal making in my future.

 

I used Coptic Stitch Binding (I'm sure that doesn't need to be capitalized but it somehow seemed appropriate). I learned about it in How To Make Books by Esther K. Smith.  I used a cereal box for the covers and embroidery thread for the binding. 

 It also gets two pictures because it's an awesome technique.  It was the first time I tried it and it's a little loosey goosey.  

What's that you say?  Didn't I just buy a binding machine?  Why am I binding this by hand?  

I got nothing.  No brilliant reason.  Leave me alone!

Sorry.  I know you're just looking out for me.  

I used paper bags to make the pages.  I used this technique to make them look cool.  I also added some envelopes as pages.  The idea of the swap is that everybody adds to the journal and then passes it on, so I wanted to make different options for people.

 

One of the cool things about this binding is that the book lies flat and I hope that will make it easier for people to add their art work.   It's a long term project but I will post some pictures of it here when I get it back.