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A new year deserves a new art journal! I'm using this one I created for Stephanie's year long class (which you can still get in on until the end of January!!).

I just used what I had on hand for it: fabric, ribbon, & paper.

To create it I just cut a piece of fabric (mustard color) & a piece of canvas to the same size, I also cut out about a 4" wide piece of fabric (turquoise color).  I started off by ironing the edges of the turquoise fabric in (thanks Rowenta for the iron!!) and then sewing the it onto the mustard fabric first.  I just pushed it into wrinkles as I sewed it instead of doing a running stitch through it first.

Then I put the mustard fabric & canvas right sides together & sewed around it almost completely and then turned it inside-out  through the opening. I then ironed all of it making sure to press the edges well.  I also folded and ironed over a 2" spine down the center of the cover.  

I then punched holes for grommets in the spine with a Cropodile Big Bite, and then put the grommets in.

For the inside pages I made 12 "signatures" (one for each month) out of file folders and then inserted a couple of folded pieces of cardstock inside each one.  Originally I thought I'd punch through the spine of all the pages to bind it and decided that wouldn't work out well and so I just sewed the signatures together individually and then glued them together.  -If you're not familiar with book binding techniques that all probably sounds really confusing!!  I wish I took photos at the time to show you, but maybe this next photo will give you a little bit of a clue to what I'm talking about.  (Oh, and ignore the two holes you see in each signatures spine!!)

I also cut out a piece of cardstock to wrap around the whole book before putting the cover on it, and punched two holes in it's spine.  I only glued the back side of it to the end of my book, but when my book is full I'll add some glue to the spine if I think it needs it.

So then I just took a ribbon and threaded it through two of the holes I mistakenly punched and then through the holes I punched in the the grommets on my art journal cover.

Hopefully that made sense!  If not let me know and I might do a video. ;)  Also, if you're looking for a new iron check out Rowenta's.  I've bought this brand since I was in college and it's always been a good one.  Even when we had problems with our Advancer model they gave us good customer service and took care of the problem.  I was especially happy when they gave us this new Focus model since I'd love to have an extra iron for my craft studio.  Can you believe it drives my husband crazy when I get craft gunk on our clothes iron?  Geez!  

I'll post some pages that I created inside it later this week!  Here's a sneak peek:

Disclaimer: I have been given a Rowenta USA iron for review.