Piano Hinge Pocket Journal

Created by: Stacey Dunning

Description: Piano Hinge Pocket Journal with Fireworks! Spray Ink Background

Stamp Sets Used: Victorian Invention, Nature Medallions, Stargazer, Feeling Regal, 123 Backgrounds - Butterflies from Blockheads.

Did you know that journaling can actually help you sleep? It's true that putting down the thoughts that keep you up at night helps rid your mind of them so you can sleep in peace without fearing that your thoughts will be lost. Well, that's true for written journals, anyway.  I'm not going to get up in the night to go to my craft room and make a book like this to get my thoughts down in a hurry. That's why I made this into a journal with pockets so I can slip my scribbles made on a spiral notebook in the middle of the night into the pockets in the morning. Later in the day I might get a chance to look over some of those ramblings.  Sometimes I come up with really great ideas at night!

In addition to using the piano hinge book binding technique (continue reading for link), this was the first opportunity I had to use the new Vintaj Patina Inks.  The brass charms in the image to the left were used to as embellishments in this journal.  You can brush these inks on using a brush or
 apply them as you would alcohol inks with a felt applicator tool.  These have the consistency and durability of alcohol inks, but are completely opaque and permanent on metal.  Use sand paper or the Vintaj reliefing block to expose raised areas of the metal.  I like adding the ink to one side of the felt and using the dry side for buffing off some of the ink before it dries, which makes sanding a little faster.  The Vintage sealer will help retain the polished look of the metal but is not required to make the ink permanent.

Here is a great link for information on creating a piano hinge book:
http://www.hgtv.com/crafting/stamped-piano-hinge-book/index.html

Binding using the piano hinge method is much easier than it looks.  You just need bamboo skewers or the birch 1/8" dowels I used and some fiber or embroidery thread for weaving around the ends of the dowels.

For my book, I decorated folded and decorated all the cardstock before binding the book.  Some people bind first and then layer their decorated pages onto the bound pages.  The background was created with Fireworks! Spray Ink, and Goosebumps texture spray just like the backgrounds I made when I created this post: Fireworks! Backgrounds.  Remember, when stamping directly on goosebumps or goosebumps covered with Fireworks! use StazOn ink pads for permanence.  A lot of the stamping I did was on plain white card stock and applied to the book with glue.

I made two variations to the standard piano hinge book: 1) By taping together the sides and bottoms of each folded page set I created pockets and 2) I created 2 half sheet dividers, so when I wove my hinges in, there were some blank areas in the weave.  You might make sure you're comfortable with the standard piano hinge before having to think through this step, but you basically pretend you are continuing to weave in the page even after it ends.

Now I can keep my more secret journal thoughts inside the pockets and show off my journal without sharing a little TMI :)