duct tape journal swap

front cover

Karen at Mail Me Some Art runs all sorts of fun swaps. So far I've only done a couple postcard swaps cause that's mostly what she offered. But recently she did a survey to see what else people might like to swap and based on those results, she just posted several new swaps. The duct tape journal swap caught my eye as I had made one before and enjoyed it. The one for the swap is even easier as it has a no-stitch binding.

I inked thru a diamond stencil with pink and tan Distress ink.
Love how it echoes the opposite page.

I cut a heavy piece of cardboard, glued pretty scrapbook paper to one side of each piece, glued a neat picture from an art book to the other sides, then taped them together with checkerboard duct tape, leaving about half an inch in the middle.

Pretty cute already. Then I cut a bunch of papers to size, folded them in half to make a signature, and held the whole thing together with a rubber band. Couldn't be easier. Actually, it could be easier because I wasn't smart enough to choose my papers first and then cut the cover to match. Next time.

Then I did some stenciling on a few of the white pages (the backs of the scrapbook paper) and added some fun tapes to others. I really like the finished journal cause you can add or remove pages, you can add more signatures with more rubber bands - very versatile. You could also use ribbon or yarn or baker's twine or whatever you want to hold the papers in. I won't get one back until late in November and by then it'll be a real surprise cause I'll have forgotten all about it.

inside back cover

inside front cover

spine

back cover