I’ve been thinking about how to create an art journal, one page at a time. But how would I keep the pages together, before they were permanently bound?
Last week, when I was window shopping on Amazon (yep, I do that!) I ran across this A6 size, 6-ring binder . It had a translucent cover with an elastic cord to hold it shut. And it came with some zip pockets and card holder sheets. I thought it looked like an interesting idea and it wasn’t very expensive so I ordered one.
I happened to have some parts for personal planners, which are the same size, so I thought it might be possible to interchange some things.
In the image above I’ve added some things to it, and I am not using the other parts that came with it yet.
The elastic cord has metal ends. They keep the elastic from slipping back through the holes. It actually came with three elastics, all finished like this. One was red, and the other two were black.
I’m sorry, but I don’t remember where the ruler came from. But the plastic tab templates are from Hobby Lobby, made by Carpe Deim. They can be used to trace around and create your own tabbed dividers.
I had a tablet of Stonehenge Aqua Hotpress watercolor paper, 12 inches by 16 inches, so I decided to experiment with it. I can cut 5 smaller pages from one sheet and have very little waste.
This paper is 140 lb. The surface does have a tiny bit of texture. It’s nice and thick and stiff, and I think it will stand up to a lot of media application.
I already had this punch. I purchased it from Hobby Lobby, and I absolutly love it. As you can see, it comes with instructions showing you just what adjustments to make for punching holes to fit various size ring binders!
It is really well made, and making the adjustments isn’t difficult. The settings are clearly marked on the body of the punch.
I had no problem adjusting it to fit this binder.
So, my plan is, that for the next week, I’ll be working on the “cards” that I’ve created here. There are 5 of them, so we’ll see how this experiment works out and if I like it by the end of the week!