Midori-style traveller's notebooks - the jillydori

I recently found a link to Midori traveller's notebooks, an intriguing notebook system with a leather folder that contains a customisable assortment of useful notebooks with the added option of plastic inserts. It's designed to be very personal, resusable as the notebooks can be replaced when full, and to become older and more worn as time goes by, the sort of notebook one can imagine Indiana Jones taking on his explorations.These beautiful leather journals come from Japan and are advertised as the notebook "for all the travellers who have a free spirit." The original Midori notebooks are made from leather with a tin clasp and an elastic band to hold the contents safely in place.
While I was curled up on the couch exploring Midori travellers notebooks via the internet I found tutorials to make your own on you tube. There are lots of them and I've made a few. I found that you can make them in leather or fabric, and found the concept of making a different size to fit pocket moleskine notebooks. I love moleskine and they come in lots of different styles so that was another bonus, as well as being a lot cheaper than the original midori notebooks. I couldn't resist the idea of making my own.
Here's what I came up with

The first one has a fabric outer and liner and 3 pocket moleskine notebooks. (2 fat quarters of fabric would make 4 journals like this and this particular fabric came from hobbycraft in a bundle with 3 other fat quarters for £7)
The balloon journal has a fabric cover but a paper liner and is filled with 3 larger moleskins cut to fit.
I was least happy with the leather version, and thin another time I would consider how to stabilise the leather, maybe with a paper or thin card lining.

The Swiss Cross Curious Bundle

Continuing the online course with Susie LaFond I made the Swiss Cross Bundle - another fun project

A curious bundle

I've been fascinated and intrigued by Susie LaFond's curious bundles ever sine I first saw them so the opportunity to do an online class was too good to miss. This is the first one, there are more to try as part of the class. The instructions were clear and easy to follow and I'm very happy with my first bundle.

The base fabric is an old pair of jeans that I would have thrown away otherwise. I'm not sure what I'll put in the pockets so I just added the vintage photos

http://truenortharts.typepad.com/curious_bundles_mixed_med/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pages for a junk journal swap

It's swap time again and posting day seems to come up so quickly. It seemed like the last minute before I had any inspiration to create some pages. Most of these pages are cut from Amazon packaging or similar

A junk journal

I love Teesha and Tracy Moore's Artstronauts club. For only $5 a month there seems like a constant stream of craft videos, printable collage sheets and all sorts of inspiration. I particularly like bookmaking videos and ideas how to build up collage.
So here is my junk journal - full of lots of inspiration and also plenty of blank pages too. The individual pages have been machine stitched together and the journal is handstitched in folios. The front and back covers were collaged and then joined with fabric paper