the hybrid chick

Like most people, I’m the kind of person who doesn’t really remember a lot of details of things that have happened before, like what fun stuff happened to me on my 12th birthday, and other such landmark events of life that I should probably have a recollection of but because my memory gets really bad, I feel like I was sprung from the ground at 27 years old with no past or background! Even with pictures as evidence, I just can’t connect my present self with myself in the past. And the easy way out?

Keep a journal, of course!

Starting one is easy, but being faithful to it takes a bit of work, especially if your journal book looked so boring and generic. So to spark my interest, I decided to create my own journal book from scratch. This way I’m involved in creating the memories I’ll write in it, and also the memory keeper itself!

It’s a super simple project with minimal required resources:

• Journal cover design created from the Every Life Has a Story – Chapter 1 kit by the Digichick Designers
• Heavy, white cardstock
• Punch and bind tool like Zutter Bind-it-all or plain old puncher and stationery rings
• Notebook paper

I started with my printed design sized at 5×7 (perfect sizing to put in a purse but still with enough space to write and draw inside!), glued to a sheet of cardstock. The carstock I used is part of the box of my photo paper, so I was able to do some recycling here!

The most time-consuming part of this project (and really it doesn’t take a lot of time at all to do) is making sure to cut the cover and the notebook paper in the same exact size so the journal doesn’t look funny. I used a guillotine paper cutter and it really speeds things up by a lot, as I was able to cut the front cover first, back cover next, and used the back cover a template for cutting the notebook paper.

With all of my notebook paper and covers cut, now I needed to bind them. I used my Bind-it-All to punch the holes. Since I didn’t want a continuous spiral, I put six holes at the top and six at the bottom just to make my journal different. It also helps in writing on the right side of the notebook. Since I’m left-handed, when I write on the right side, the spiral binding hampers the positioning of my writing hand, so the gap allows me some space to write more legibly in those parts of the journal.

Finally, I used 3/8″ Antique Brass colored binding rings. The color works very well with the colors from the kit and gives my journal a really classy look. Here’s my finished product:

And that’s seriously one of the easiest hybrid projects I’ve ever done! Now I’ll never feel like I’ve been abducted by aliens because of the gaps in my memory; I can just refer to my journal if I ever forget anything!

Other Articles by alien21xx:

• Hybrid Gift Planner - September 29th, 2009