DIY Project-Envelope journal book

This is the DIY project that I mentioned earlier in my post of Recycled Envelope Book Journal. Enjoy the project.

Materials needed : Recycled envelopes in the same shape and size, ribbons, medium weight cardboard (or colour papers), carton box cardboard, paper bag (or fabric, gift paper etc), glue, tape (or binding tape, deco tape etc) and scissor.

Place the envelopes side by side and paste both the edge together using cellophone tape, binding tape or deco tape in your preferences. Paste them all together to the the thickness of the book that you wanted.

Take the measurement of the envelopes and cut 2pcs of carton cardboard and 2pcs of white cardboard or colour paper in the same size with the envelopes.

Paste the white cardboard or any colour paper to front and back of the envelopes. I'm using plain tape for pasting them together. Instead of using plain tape, you could use special book binding tape or deco tape for this purpose as well.

After that, it will become a pre-finish envelope book with white cardboard on front and back of the envelopes. These is to be attached to the journal book cover that we will now going to make.

To make the journal book cover. First of all, dismantle the paper bag to flat sheet of paper. Trying to use a big paper bag in order for it to cover the whole book later. Instead of paper bag, you can use fabric, gift paper or any other papers for this purposes.

Cut the paper in the width of (the width of the carton cardboard x 2 + allowance on the side x 2 + the gap between the two carton cardboard) and length of (the length of the carton cardboard + allowance on the top x 2). The measurement will be depend on the size of your recycled envelopes. In my case, it is (16cm x 2 + 2cm x2 + 3cm )=39cm length and width (25cm + 2cm x2)=29cm.

Apply glue to the surface of the carton cardboard. Instead of using glue, you can use double sided tape on the corner of the cardboard as well. Apply just a thin layer of glue, too much will make the paper uneven when dry.

Place both the carton cardboards that you have applied glue or tape to the back of the paper bag. Place them with the gap of same width with the envelopes that you have pasted together. Meaning the thickness of the book to be. In my case, it is 3cm.

Cut off the excess paper on the four corner of the carton cardboard like picture shown. Don't cut it too close to the carton cardboard, leave about 0.3cm allowances.

Press down all the paper bag seam to the back of the carton cardboard and paste it with glue or tape in order for them to stay in position.

Glue or patch the strip of ribbons on the center area of the journal book cover that you have done. Both of the ribbons have to be in the same position on the cover so that it will tie up nicely when the book is done.

Apply glue to the front white cardboard cover of the envelope book and place it to the carton cardboard nicely and in position.

Lastly, press the cover firmly and let it dry. It will become a envelope journal book like this after it was dried.