Letterboxing Journal
This is a great, eco-friendly project. You can use recycled materials for the cover stock, inside pages and elastic band. We used a cereal box, paper that had minimal printing on one side and an elastic band that came on our broccoli stems. The stick was found in our backyard. The only new material we used was a few sheet of decorative paper. Another great thing with how this journal is bound, you can undo the binding and change out the center sheets of paper if you would like… reusing your cover pages again and again.
Take a sheet of 8.5×11 and cut it in half lengthwise creating a 4.25×11 sheet. You can reuse paper that has been printed on one side. Fold in half to 4.25×5.5 (printed side on the inside). Stack several sheets together. This will make the pages of your book. They will be double thick to help stop the stamp ink from bleed through. Punch holes in the open side ½” from the edges. If you have a lot of pages it will be difficult to punch through… so as long as you are careful lining up the edges you can just do a couple pages at a time.
Now to do the front and back cover, cut two piece of thin cardboard from either a cereal box, album cover, or old folder to 5 x 6 inches. Decorate the cardboard with paper. To do this, cut a sheet of paper to 6 x 6.5 inches. Glue the cardboard down in the center of the paper, wrong sides together, with one short side lined up, the three other sides with a ½” overlap. Fold the two corners of the paper in at 45 degree angle over the cardboard. Glue the corners down. Fold the three edges of the paper over all the way around and glue down. You can now cut a 4.5 x 5.75 inch piece of plain paper to cover the inside of the covers and hide the folded down pieces, again line up the one short side exactly. Punch holes in the covers by using the pages as a guide. Line up the gutter edge, and vertically center the pages. Crease the front cover one inch in from the edge with the holes so it bends freely to open. Decorate the front as you wish. I reduced the caterpillar appliqué to 5 x 5 inches to fit on the cover (83%). I lined up everything with the outside edge (away from the holes) and glued as if it were appliquéd. Add any extra details you would like with a fine point permanent marker.
Now place your stick on the front side of the journal over the holes. You may need to break your stick to size. Thread the piece of elastic up through the holes front the back, a crochet hook can be very helpful. Slip the elastic over the stick both ends of the stick.
