FAQ about Junk Journals - Spilling ALL the beans

hello everyone it's natasha from treasure books in this video i'm going to answer all of your questions or to be more specific i'm going to answer the most frequently asked questions on my channel we will be covering everything from pricing your journals to all of your sewing questions to glue to binding your journals and all the stuff in between you may know some of the things you may not know some of the things but i'm hoping that after watching this video you will feel just a little bit more confident and knowledgeable in how to make and sell your own journals all right let's get started question number one what paper weight do you use for tea and coffee dying this question was asked a lot when i did my video on teen coffee dyeing and onion skin dyeing as well i will dye anything ranging from flimsy paper doilies to envelopes over here to some cardstock to even fabric but in terms of paper that i use for my journals like for example you can see in this journal all this tea dyed paper or coffee dyed paper here i've even died some baking paper but i just use standard copy paper and this is 80 gsm so just standard copy paper nothing special nothing too expensive i usually buy the cheapest one and that's absolutely fine to use and i have no problems whatsoever with it people often say that their paper rips when they take it out of the solution and occasionally i have that problem as well it's just a matter of finding the sweet spot of how you take the paper out of the solution and i do sort of go into more detail on that in that video that i did on tea dyeing and onion skin dyeing so i will link it down below and you can have a look if you like question number two where do you get your supplies and oftentimes people will ask me to link the products that i use in my videos and the thing is i can't do that because most of my most of my things i get from secondhand shops another good place is a facebook marketplace if you just search for scrapbooking supplies and you type in you put in near me so then you can see people that are around you that are selling stuff you can oftentimes get really good deals on huge amounts of things so i actually found a lady that was deciding she no longer wants to do scrap booking and she had a whole heap boxes of stuff that she wanted to get rid of and it was a really good price and i grabbed it and that alone can last me a few years so that's a good place and another thing that i like to do is look at clearance sales from craft shops online or otherwise my favorite one is casey craft the reason why i mentioned crazy craft is because most of the papers that i use the scrapbooking papers actually come from casey craft look at this really quite beautiful paper good paperweight too double sided and they used to have bundles of a hundred mixed papers for ten dollars i'm not sure if they do that anymore but when they did have these in those bundles i used to get five or six bundles at a time and now i have a whole lot of paper that i can use and it's all from casey caseycraft next few questions are pertaining to junk journals and they are what do you use them for how do you use them and what do you write in them these questions i'm asked very very frequently and here's the thing okay you can get a three dollar journal from kmart or whatever like this this one actually cost one dollar or you can have something like this this was a journal that i purchased from somebody else and this is my journal that i'm currently using to write in and personally i'm more inspired to write in something like this i feel like there's an element of surprise and excitement every time i turn the page it allows me to be creative i can look at a page like this i can write about my day here then i can maybe write myself a quote on here or put a little photograph in there something like that right maybe on a day that i don't feel like journaling a lot i can just write a little something here what happened that day just a little note so that's the thing for me i feel when i have something like this i feel like i want to write i feel like i want to sit down and i wanted to journal and i like looking at the pages and all of the different elements and different little surprises and that's also why i like to purchase my journals from other people in terms of what do you write in them i'll just give you a few examples this one here is my writing journal this is where i come in and i write about an issue that i'm having or things that i want to get out you know looking for solutions to problems or whatever you know whatever's on my mind if i'm feeling down or upset or happy or whatever i like to journal in here so this journal i use for that type of journaling just writing this one here i have a full flip through and i will link it down below so you can get some ideas but this one is more of i would say like a visual journal so i like to glue things down and write quotes and all sorts of things that i come across and maybe put little my son made me this and i put that in there so that's like it's like a memory keeping but you know in a different kind of way it's a what would you call it maybe an art journal but i'm not i i'm not i'm not drawing and painting as much maybe here i did a bit of watercolor i've got some stickers all that sort of stuff so it's just little things like i remember this day when me and my daughter made this and you know so anyway i have a full flip through of this one on my channel i'll link it down below so you can have a look one of my favorite things to do in this type of journal is a currently list so for example 6th of july 2020 which was a year ago i wrote myself what was i watching i was watching the peaky blinders and dead to me i forgot all about this what was i reading water for elephants what was i learning what was i loving what was i hating you know so it's nice to kind of come back to this say in five years time 10 years time what was i doing on the 6th of july 2020 like what was happening in my life and i have a little list here so this is just an example of kind of what you can write down i will do a video sort of going into more detail of how you can use junk journals this is an actual proper junk journal made from cereal boxes and leftover bits and pieces and all that sort of stuff and then this one here is more like an could you call it an art journal or a glue book i come in and i'm just you know whenever i have a little a little bit of time i glue in some things i write some things down maybe you know this was from a coloring book some dolphins that are colored and cut out and it just gives me an opportunity to be creative because sometimes i don't feel like writing a whole lot of things but i do feel like i don't know making a little card like this so this was actually from a video how to hand stitch on paper i will link it down below so a junk journal and art books and things like that you can use in any way that makes sense to you or whatever you need that day or at that particular time in your life i feel like when people ask me what do you use them for and what do you write in it you anything that you write down on a piece of paper you can write in a junction or you can be grocery lists it can be daily to-do's it can be a course you're doing you can be writing notes in there life goals just gluing things down all sorts of things so i will do a more in-depth video on that and i remember this day this was quite fun when i made this one so i just felt like gluing things down and i drew some flowers and watercolored them and you know just made a really nice spread and this is a photo from a magazine a picture from a magazine cut that out put that in there you know this was my uh very poor attempt at painting you can see i can't paint or draw but that's okay and here i just kind of put in things that you know i saw this in a magazine or in a book and i thought this will go nice in this journal so i'll pop it in here and when i have a bit of time i might come in and i might you know distress the edges glue it down like doodle around it whatever so that's how i use my journals and i also have a little one going at the moment this one here is just sitting on my desk you might have seen a video i did on this it was just this is a true junk journal just leftover pieces of some envelopes and and pieces of paper and i just it's on my desk and i come in and i glue something down if i have a leftover piece i just it's not a serious thing like i can maybe write i haven't done any writing in here but mostly sewing and gluing things down it's just a way to be creative next question how do you distress paper what ink do you use and what is that tool you use all right here's that tool here are some inks some more inks and then some more inks so my current favorite is tim holtz distress inks vintage photo aged mahogany brushed corduroy these are just currently the ones that i'm using the most but before i had these ones i was using any ink that i could get like i was using cheap ones from kmart and stuff like this i even used shoe polish this is from a stamp pad i was using this so they all still have a little bit of ink in them so i use them still the archival inks are really good because they don't bleed so if you stamp on a page and then you go over it with some glue or anything wet it's not going to bleed whereas these ones here they do bleed so that's just something to keep in mind this one here is from casey craft this tool is called an ink blending tool people always ask me this question ink blending tool but before i had my ink blending tool i was using makeup sponges so i would just dip my makeup sponge into some ink and then ink those edges and it works perfectly fine and just as well as an ink blending tool you don't have to have any special things to be creative you can get a really cheap ink and get some makeup sponges and off you go now in terms of distressing paper obviously a tea dye coffee diet all that sort of thing but somebody asked me and i thought i will show you how do you kind of distress paper without getting marks that you don't particularly like on a page i don't know if i'm explaining that correctly but let me just show you another one that i forgot to mention is these makeup sponges i like to use these especially if i'm stenciling if i have a stencil and i want to go over the top with this over the top of my stencil i like to use these makeup sponges i mean makeup brushes now with this one here i want to age the whole paper let's see so this ink is quite saturated and if i put too much ink on it and then i start doing this you can see that it's leaving these circular bits and that's not what you want so what you want to do is just get a little bit of ink onto your sponge whatever sponge you're using you start off the paper you don't start on the paper if you start on the paper it will leave that mark so let's go over here you start off the paper and then with a very gentle hand you're using circular motions and adding gradual color so you can see the difference here to here and here i'll show you on this tag as well and let's say i want to age the edges i start off the page or off the tag on the side and then i slowly circular motions move all around let's say i want the corners a lot darker i'll just work that corner so you want to start with a gentle hand and once you already motion then you can start adding a little bit more pressure and you always when i'm doing it i don't put my ink blending tool flat on the paper i kind of keep it at an angle like this and then gently i go around it's kind of hard to explain and there we go i hope that helps it's a little bit harder i have to admit with these sponges but it can still be done it's just a very very very gentle hand see and in terms of these ones here in all honesty you can make your own you can get cork from a wine bottle or whatever and glue some felt onto it and there you have an ink blender you don't actually have to go and buy one i crafted many years without having this so it's doable next question how did you make your tearing ruler let me show you what a tearing ruler is you can buy one but i made mine and people ask me how so i'm going to show you this is a tearing ruler when you tear the page you get this fun edge if you tear that page with a normal ruler you get more of a clean cut so you would use a tearing ruler when you want to have this these edges and if you can imagine having a journal and all of the pages being torn like this it gives a really really nice effect so because i didn't want to go out and spend money and buy ruler and i think it was because i wanted one right now i didn't want to wait for one i went ahead and i made my own so i'm going to show you how first of all you need a plastic ruler it's not going to work with a metal ruler of course and let's see how am i going to show you this all right i'm outside in my backyard and i happen to have this metal kind of fencing over here most likely you don't have a fence like this but you can use a rock you can use maybe the edge of your decking or something like that but this is how i made my ruler so i have my ruler here my plastic ruler and then i just did this and here we go and i just went along there we go here's a nice little rock takes a little bit more work but it's getting there it'll be better if you can find a sharp rock or even what tools do we have here i'm sure there's something that can help i know exactly what i'm looking for it's that metal file that would be perfect for this these are good scissors what are they doing here i think i found it i think this is what i was looking for let's try it out i'm taking my scissors no wonder i can never find things people keep stealing from me all right here we go i don't know what this is called but it looks like it's going to work here we go i think you get the idea what i wanted to mention is what you want is to have some deep depressions like this then you want to have some sort of straightish areas and then some smaller depressions and then some bigger ones so you don't want it to all be evenly spaced and you don't want even depths and then once it's done if you have these little bits you know all the time they come off or you can just follow down a little bit and bob's your uncle as they say next question what is your accent and where are you from i was born in bosnia and i live in australia hence that saying you just heard me say bob's your uncle i think that's an aussie saying and it basically means there it is or there you have it and it is used to express the ease with which a task can be achieved you can go and buy a tearing ruler or you can make one next question where do you store all the stuff can you do a craft room tour let me show you something i basically store my stuff anywhere that i can this is a common problem from all of us crafters you can see there's my desk and there's my filming station right now and i pretty much have stuff all around me let me open that cupboard over there i can't even begin to show how i store my stuff i feel like craft room tours should be inspiring and should help others but honestly i don't feel like i would be much help there because as you can see everything is all over the place but the good thing is i know exactly where everything is when i need something i know exactly where to go because everything is organized and even though to somebody else this might look like a huge mess or a very cluttered space which it is but it's organized and everything is labeled you might have noticed i have labels so i never have problem finding things unless it's scissors that people have stolen from me so that's why i haven't done a craft room tour because i honestly wouldn't know where to start i think a lot of us have the same issue because there's so many different sections that we need like we need a place for paper we need a place for ribbons we need a place for stamps for inks for this and that so and over the years our stash just keeps growing and growing which is what happened here i started off with just a little box of little bits and pieces and it's just blown up pretty much next question how much did you sell it for i get this question all the time when i list the journal for sale for example if i do a flip through on my channel and then i list it and then it's sold and people go to my etsy shop and they can't see the listing they want to know how much the journal sold for this is a two-part answer first of all if you're asking because you want to know how you can price your journals i can't actually help with pricing journals because that's a very individual thing you can make the most amazing piece of art and price it at 10 and if you can't find a buyer you are not going to be able to sell it and it can work the other way around you can make a standard journal and sell it for quite a lot of money because you have found the buyer for the journal i usually go with how much would i pay for this journal that's the first question i ask myself when i'm pricing something because it is very difficult to know how much to price something how much am i willing to spend and that's another thing that we can go into if it's somebody that's let's say my favorite artist for example let's take jenny billy for example because she was my huge inspiration when i first started making journals i would have paid a whole lot of money to have one of her journals it's what the meaning is for you when you're purchasing a journal so it's a very personal thing and i don't want to go too deep with this question i think looking at an hourly rate is not the way to go because you will probably never be able to make back in terms of an hourly rate like you know in a typical job how much would you get paid an hour do you think that you can ma sell your journal for that hourly rate so if this if this took me i don't know how long did it take me 10 hours i don't know i don't sort of look at these things how do you even determine how long a journal takes me sometimes just thinking about what i'm going to do on the cover and how i'm going to make it can take a long time so okay second part to this answer specifically to the question how much did you sell it for i don't know if you know but you can actually see how much something sold for on etsy this is no big secret i found out by googling it and i wrote the steps down for you if you want to have a look i want to see maybe if i can actually show you on my computer how you can do it okay i'm not sure how to do the screen sharing so i'm just going to show you like this so you're in somebody's shop that's the name of the shop and then you can see here they've made 127 sales you click on the sales and then all of the things that i have sold come up let's say you want to know how much this handlebar bag has sold for you click on the item and it tells you here that it's been sold out you go to see item details and then the listing for that item comes up comes up and then you can see over here the description that's where you right click and you select view page source click on that and then all this mumbo jumbo comes up that doesn't make any sense and then you do control f at the same time and a little box all the way down the bottom right over here will come up and you type in price mine's already come up because i've typed in price but you type in price here we go price and as you type it in that section will come up and you can see it's highlighted and it tells you that bag sold for 60 dollars and it tells you the currency this is australian dollars and there you go and i also just want to show you this is a different etsy shop and you see here sales when you go over it with your mouse you can't actually click on it it's not taking you anywhere that's because this particular seller wanted to make their sales private so you can't always tell how much something sold for only if the seller hasn't made their sales private most sellers don't but you know that also happens so like i said before it's no secret i mean the price isn't a secret i don't mind people knowing how much something you know one of my journals sold for i just don't particularly like always answering that question next question why don't you use digitals i'm going to put this here just for some eye candy this is actually a wallet that i made into a journal i have a tutorial on this one as well all right the simple answer to why i don't use digital is because i don't have a printer and it's as simple as that i only have a black and white printer that can only run print words not pictures and stuff like that i also don't want to be spending money buying a printer and then buying the digitals and then buying the ink over and over again and that's just my personal choice over the years i have wanted to get a printer and i wanted to use digital's and i have absolutely nothing against using digitals i don't see it as a bad thing but i think over the years it's become somewhat of a principle of mine to be creative without using digitals i feel like i've done fine so far making journals and selling journals without any digitals i do miss them sometimes like for example this it came in a paper pack it's not a natural digital but sometimes you know i feel like i wish i could just go and purchase digitals like this so i can have things to ready embellish my journals i feel like i'm more creative when i have to think of other ways to use you know to embellish my journals and using books and and scrapbook paper and magazine images and all of that sort of stuff i'm a firm believer just like for example when i was talking about this when i said that you can use a makeup sponge you can do everything without buying all the things over the years your stash kind of grows and you expand and all that sort of stuff but i feel like you don't need to buy digitals to be creative and that's just my personal choice and like i mentioned it it's kind of become a principle i've often thought you know i should probably start designing some printables because you know make make a little bit of money on selling them in my etsy shop but it's just another thing that i would have to do i'm not saying i will never do it but my heart's not in it other than that i don't have anything against them and i do purchase journals that use digital so like my journal here these are all digitals digital papers you see printed in on a printer so sometimes i feel like if it's overdone with digital then there's nowhere to write or especially if it's like bright colors and big flowers and that sort of thing i mean i can either cover this i like this but you know i would leave this as it is but you can't really journal on it so journals that have way too many printables in them i'm not a fan of or things in particular like i like this one for example because there's a lot of writing space look at this absolute perfection there's a lot of writing space there there's a lot of embellishments look at this you know so i really do like that those are my thoughts on printables or digitals i should say all right we are moving right along to some questions pertaining to particularly to sewing and using a sewing machine first question what sewing machine do you use alright here we go here is my sewing machine it's an elner and it was the cheapest machine that i could find that's still uh not a flimsy machine and not not one of those handheld ones it's a proper machine but the cheapest one because that's what i needed for what i wanted to do this one cost me about 170 australian dollars and it was on sale and i've had it for years and i use it every day and it's just perfect prior to purchasing this machine i've never actually used a sewing machine in my life so it was quite fun you know putting some paper through my sewing machine for the first time and it is the best absolutely the best investment i've ever made in making junk journals and like i said i use it every single day and that's one thing i probably couldn't live without what size needle and what type thread do you use i'm just going to grab some threads that were on my desk i need to do some dusting these are the needles that i use they are universal needles and this is the size i don't know i don't even know what this means but it's a size it's the size of the needle 90 14. i'm sure i can google it and look it up to see the meaning but i just didn't feel like i needed to know i use this for everything fabric cardboard paper anything or like plastic you know sleeves and things like that anything that i need to sew i use these needles i don't have any other needles i will sew through right through a thick cardboard like this and it doesn't it doesn't bother me one bit in terms of thread any thread that i come across i find a lot of my threads in secondhand shops and they usually come in huge bags of all sorts of different threads usually the rule of thumb i guess is i mean i don't know much about this but you should use the same thread in your top part and in the bobbin but i don't actually i just do whatever like for example at the moment i have this silky thread this very silky thread in my bobbin and then i have this let me show you and then i have this completely different type of thread up the top here i really need to dust this goodness you can see here two different types of thread one is silky and the other one is not probably not the best thing to do for your machine but i haven't had any problems with that so it's been working fine for me the most common advice would be to use the same type of thread so for example i have these silky ones so i would use the same type of thread and the other most common advice is to use good quality thread personally i don't follow any of that advice i just use whatever i can get my hands on because of what i do i make journals i sew on paper and cardboard i'm not a seamstress i'm not making wedding dresses there are no rules when it comes to sewing for me next question what stitch length do you use all right back at my machine and look i dusted it all right here is my stitch lengths i use between two and three i think that's millimeters i usually have it set here if i'm using a zigzag stitch this one here if i want the zigzags really close together close zigzags like this i will move it down to about maybe two millimeters if i want a wide stitch then i would go maybe up up here somewhere but most cases my stitch length is between two and three millimeters okay so let me show you this one here is between two and three and this is the stitch i like to use this one here is a one and the problem with the one is the holes or the perforations are way too close together and then your paper can very easily rip you see that's why you don't want them very close together because then that's what happens and this is my zigzag stitch this is between two and three so two and a half millimeters and then this one here is a one so sometimes when i'm doing zigzag stitch i like to move it down probably not to one but maybe a between one and two or two next question how often do you change needles so how often do you change needles and how often should you change needles are two different things back to the eye candy all right so the recommendation of changing needles is after every eight hours of sewing time so for paper maybe it would be four hours of sewing time because paper actually does your needle very very quickly much quicker than fabric so that's the recommendation um quilters i know i think they change their needle after every project so that's another recommendation after every project change your needle personally i change my needle once it's completely dull once i notice that a lot of stitches are being skipped because that can be a sign of many different things but one of the things is a dull needle that will you know make your stitches skip or if a needle is bent out of shape that doesn't happen very often so i think when i first bought my machine that needle the very first needle was in there for i they say a good year and i sew every single day so i'm probably not the best person to give advice which is why i googled what the correct answer is but personally that's how often i change my needle not very next question will sewing and paper ruin my machine you might have noticed just before when i was showing you my machine how dusty it is i gave it a quick clean but just want to mention then sewing on paper produces a lot of dust occasionally i will clean my machine i think it's really quite important to clean your machine and i cleaned my machine for the first time when i started having problems you can see in here dust so what i do now is i go in there with my brush and i'll just give it a quick clean every few days or so i'll blow some air in there to you know get all that dust out and then occasionally i will open everything out and clean it up i did that the first time i did that because i didn't know any better it was about after about four years of using the machine and after i cleaned it it sounded brand new again it was like it was purring like a cat so i think sewing paper on your machine is not going to ruin your machine you have to look after your machine regardless of what you sew you can sew paper on any machine if you use your machine for other projects like if you sew actual fabric or dresses or bags or whatever on your sewing machine the good thing to do is to have two different needles so you can have one needle for sewing on paper and then your other needle for sewing on more important thing or i shouldn't say more important on fabric so you can very easily distinguish between needles if you just use a little bit of nail polish or something on the head of the needle for one of the needles and then you know what's what and especially because paper dulls the needle very quickly so to answer the question no it will not ruin your machine but not looking after your machine over time will ruin it i'm not that precious with my sewing machine it's not you know past done through generations to me it wasn't a very expensive sewing machine so that's pretty much it and just a little disclaimer here i'm not an expert on sewing machines or sewing like i said i've never sewn anything in my life until i bought the machine and put a piece of paper through so everything i've learned i've learned through trial and error i've had bent needles i've had skipping stitches took ages to work out why at one time it was because the needle was really dull another time it was because the needle was horrendous it was really cheap needle another time was because there was a lot of dust gathered the machine was making lots of noise things were not working and then i googled you know what's going on with my machine why is it so noisy and then i realized oh i'm supposed to actually clean this thing you know and then i cleaned it and then it was like a brand new machine so all the answers you need you you can just google it and there's lots of videos and stuff so like i said i'm not an expert i'm just kind of sharing because people ask me so i'm sharing my you know from my perspective next question can i do this project without a sewing machine this question is often asked on a lot of projects that you know where i use my sewing machine the answer is probably yes if you have glue you can just use glue instead of the sewing machine so let's take for example this journal here so you can see there's a little bit of sewing over this page this picture here the sewing adds lots of character to the work you know here you can probably see i've sewn this pocket shut over here so i just went through it with my machine to sew the pocket you can do that without a sewing machine you can use glue in there and close that pocket things like this no you don't need a sewing machine for this there's only a few things that you can't do without a sewing machine and i always state if i do a project i always state you do need a sewing machine for this i'll give you an example out of all of the videos that i've done and all of the tutorials only two things come to mind where you absolutely need a sewing machine the first is when i was using doona and clothing packaging and stuff like that packaging like this this type of packaging coming from quilts and donuts and all that stuff for this i would say yes you need your sewing machine i was making these pockets i'll link the tutorial if you wanted to see and here i've got some fabrics stored in this one and some paper off cuts in this one that sort of thing this you can't no glue is going to hold this together or maybe some will i'm not sure actually but if there is a glue i don't own it so for this sort of stuff you do need your sewing machine if you want the pocket to stay intact and the other thing the other tutorial that i have is using cereal bags these sorts of things i know there's there are some machines that will kind of melt the plastic together but you know i have this book page in between and you know you you really do need it if you want to recreate this exact thing using a book page and making this double pocket little pouch you need a sewing machine for everything else you don't need a sewing machine simply put i will say if there's plastic involved yet most likely you will need a sewing machine this was another video that i did a while back and and i always get this question how can i make that without a sewing machine so i've used book pages and and i created clearly i like creating pouches so for this type of thing instead of the sewing you just use glue i personally wouldn't probably spend all that time gluing all these book pages together and then you know making pouches so for me having the sewing machine it's just easier and it's quicker to do project like this but absolutely if you don't have a sewing machine there's there is a way around it it just depends if you want to spend that time gluing everything down speaking of glue let's move on to that section what glue do you use i have tried many glues and and i have a lot of glues that i use but these are the main glues that i use i use this boil craft glue this glue does not warp paper because it's not water based it is acetone based the thing is this company is an australian company and they don't actually ship overseas because of the acetone inside the glue but there are other glues if you're in the u.s for example there are glues in the us that are acetone based i'm pretty sure fabry tech is one of them even though i know fabri-tac is actually a company so not a not a type of a glue but you can always go to your craft store and just ask the personnel there and hopefully they'll know you just ask them which glue is an acetone-based glue anything that's water-based will warp paper just like water warps paper anything that has water in it will warp paper the next glue i'm going to mention is pva glue i mentioned this glue quite a lot and i always get question what is pva glue pva glue is just a type of glue you can google that if you want it's just a type of glue all sorts of different companies make glue that's pva glue and it will say pva somewhere on the bottle i think i'm gonna have to do a separate video on just the glue so i want to show you this one see here it's a completely different company but it says here pva wood glue if it's a wood glue it will you know it's good for wood paper cardboard etc but the thing is not all glue is going to state what type of glue it is this one says washable clear glue the fact that's that it's washable tells me that it's water-based and therefore will warp paper and i know from experience that this one does warp paper this one here tacky glue this one doesn't even actually say what type of a glue it is and there's just so many different types of glues it's really hard to know isn't it which one is going to be good for a project so that is why i stick this is when i was experimenting buying all different types of glue until i actually found my perfect glue which is this one here the pva glue i actually i can use this glue neat just as it is or i actually mix it with water which is what this is here it's just pva glue mixed with water and i'll tell you how i use it but that is the next question i'm going to answer what ratio do you mix your pva glue and water okay so for projects where i need really thin glue that spreads very easily which is almost water like like for example in this project when i was making this faux handmade paper and in projects where i'm using napkins you know to cover a surface or tissue paper or anything so fine that anything that can't take dragging across the page like it's going to rip if you're dragging this gloggy glue across it this is covered with napkin napkin is very very fine so for a project like that i need a very watery running glue this is separated a little bit so let me just mix it up so for projects like that i need runny glue you can see here it's dripping it's runny and then i can very easily cover a surface with the glue i don't need to drag it across the page it can very easily saturate the page with the glue when i'm making that dilution the ratio that i use is two-thirds glue one-third water but it all depends because pva glues different companies make different consistencies some are really runny some are really gloggy and over time as well the older the glue the gloggy it kind of becomes maybe a little bit so that's why i say approximate so in this little jar i would put two-thirds pva glue and then i would just add a one-third of water and mix it up really really well like like this use a rag mix it up really really well in there and i just go by feel so sometimes i will need to add a little bit more water or if i've added you know too much water i can add a little bit of glue i think the idea is you want a runny see i've shown this before you want it runny just go by feel put it in add a bit more water if it's too runny add a bit more glue and bob's your uncle next question can i use mod podge this is another one of those questions that i get all the time mod podge is actually a company it's not a type of a glue so when you say can i use mod podge i don't really know what you're referring to but i assume you're referring to glue let's take this one for example gloss laster it's a water-based sealer glue and finish okay so this is a glue this one here as well in my experience i remember when i when i was using the sparkle one to you i used it as a sealer so first of all the glue is quite gloggy like this and i remember when i used this one as a sealer i remember that my pages were sticking together and i really really really hated that so i don't know what it is but our personal experience i didn't try all of their products but i found that this sticking people ask me if they don't have the pva glue can they use mod podge i assume because it says it's water-based and this one here as well says that it's water-based i would assume that yes you can mix this up with water let's see how runny this one is all right so this one is quite runny quite runny i would have no problem whatsoever mixing this one with water so my answer would be yes most likely you can use mod podge you can mix that with water you may not need to like this one looks really runny so i could use this as it is the only reason why i mix my glue with water is to make it easily spreadable that's the only reason why and then of course you also get more out of your glue if you're diluting it like that so if you're using it as a sealer then i definitely wouldn't mix it with water i'm not a huge fan of this glue but i will still use it next question why don't you use glue sticks or double-sided tape here is some double-sided tape on a project this came up maybe i can't really say i'm just guessing maybe about after about a year maybe two years and this wasn't there when i received it but look at it all sipped through the paper and that to me is unacceptable and i stay away from double sided tape unless it's for a you know for something quick that i need to do i wouldn't have it in a project that you know i expect to last for many years here's another one here um i did this page years ago many years ago and you can see different type of double-sided tape this wasn't my project this was gifted to me so most likely were two different double-sided tapes i think this was one of those roll-on double-sided tapes and same thing happened so that's the reason why i don't use double-sided tape in terms of glue sticks these are some magazine images that i glued onto some tea dyed paper and what i do is i glue it on with a glue stick and then i sew around so i do use glue sticks but i use them as helpers they're my helpers so basically you can see this it's not it's keeping that on there like it's not it's not going anywhere but if i do this see that that's glue stick and that to me in a journal especially journal i'm selling it's unacceptable i don't want things i don't want that to happen i know there's different types of glue sticks and i've had people get angry at me and call me a glue stick snob or something these archival permanent glue sticks okay i haven't come across one i haven't felt the need to go look for a glue stick that's going to last forever when i've got my other glues that i use so if you use a glue stick that's permanent great for you i just personally haven't come across that glue stick yet let me just say once again this is all my personal opinion here my answers to questions that people ask me personally okay next few questions pertain to book binding in particular the very first one and i get this question a lot a lot of you will already know an answer but here we go it's what is a signature in book binding a section or a signature is a group of sheets folded in half to be worked into the binding as a unit you can see there in this book you can see the different sections over here their signatures in this handmade journal you can see i have five signatures one two three four five five signatures so when you take any sheet like this and you fold it in half that single folded sheet is called a folio i'm pretty sure when you take a number of folded sheets in half and you place them inside each other like this you get a signature and this leads me to my next question which is how many pages per signature in books that you buy to read they usually have about four to seven pages per signature i say there are no rules especially when making junk journals no particular rules the sweet spot for me is about 10 pages per signature i have been known to place up to 17 pages a signature sometimes even just three pages in a signature for example in this journal over here because i was using cardstock i was actually using greeting cards that i have altered and made into a book how many do i have per signature let's see so when you're using thicker pages your signatures will be thicker and here i was just using three pages per signature so that's the end of my signature you can see here one two three cards you can see here the binding is there so i was only using three pages per signature because the pages are very very thick so the thickness of paper will also matter in this journal i had nine pages per signature or i should say nine sheets that i have folded in half and used in a signature if you're using a whole lot of embellishments and real thick embellishments and all that sort of stuff you might need to use less pages in your signature if you're making a naked journal let's say it's not an embellished journal you can have 20 pages in a signature the more pages you have the harder it is to bind that's what i found anyway if i'm making a book that has a smaller spine we will discuss this in the one of the next questions this is a very large spine so i had five signatures and i had nine pages per signature and that gives me 18 leaves so i have 18 leaves and if i'm just counting sides that gives me 36 pages in the signature so let's say in this book i have five signatures once they're folded in half each of those pages will give me two leaves and then each leaf will give me two sides so for one signature i have 36 sides and the way when you're stating how many pages your journal has you're stating how many sides you're not counting pages like this one page two pages three pages you count them like this one two three four etcetera just like you would in a book have a look at a book 146 147 100 148 149 so when you're stating how many pages your signature has i mean your journal has you stating how many sides the easy way to calculate this is like this i have nine pages per signature and i times that how many signatures i have i have five signatures in this book so nine pages times five signatures which gives me a total number of 45 and then i times that by four times four this journal has in total 180 pages and the reason why i times it by four is because of this from one page you get four sides okay so we have one page we fold it in half we have page number one page number two page number three page number four there probably was an easier way to explain this but in any case i hope it makes sense all right the next question is how many signatures per book there is no one answer to that question this is just my little notes here so the first thing you need to have a look at is your spine how large is your spine you can see here my spine is two and three quarters of an inch so just less than three inches and i have five signatures in there in this one i could have fit more in there if i use less pages per signature for example if i used only five pages per signature then i could fit more in there so it depends on how many pages you use per signature and how large your spine is for this journal here which i'm in the process of making of course i'm only going to fit one signature in here and i'm not sure how many pages i'll be able to fit in i would say about ten this one here this spine is about one and a half inches from the outside i would say i will fit i would probably put two signature signatures in this two or three very easy to fit three signatures in here so it really depends on what type of a book you're making how big the spine is and how many pages per signature if i wanted to i could fit i could have only two pages per signature and i could feel fit 20 signatures in here so you know i'm not going to do that because of all that binding that i would have to do and also you have too many holes and too many strings and all that sort of thing so it really depends on those factors that i've just mentioned this journal here that i was making with greeting cards the spine is three inches and i have nine signatures but i only have three pages per signature but the pages are cardstock so it depends on a number of different factors but i would say there are no rules none whatsoever you just go with whatever works as long as your book closes and you know what it doesn't even have to close look at this one alligator mouth when i was making this journal uh this is what i wanted this is this was my expectation i wanted my journal to be like this i wanted it to be a treasure a treasure book that's what i wanted and i only have two signatures in there i did the tutorial on this journal so i have a twin of what this journal looked like before any journaling before i added any of my stuff so you can see the difference it's got the exact same number of pages but this one has been used and it's been journaled in and i've got all sorts of things stuck stuck in there and put into pockets and clipped in and this general is completely empty waiting to be used no rules especially in junk journaling next question how do you incorporate a single page into a book if you're making a journal just using single pages so you're not folding your pages in half you're just using single pages then you can do something like this this is called japanese tab binding and i have a tutorial that i recently did on this so this is if you're just using single pages and you want to make a journal this journal it's kind of a gatefold type journal i did this on video recently and i used washi tape to hold my pages together so this journal kind of opens this way and then this way and you can see here i was securing the pages they're all single pages they're not folded in half they're all single pages that i was securing together with some washi tape you can use washi tape you can use sticky tape you can you can use a piece of fabric that's called hinging but let's say for example you wanted to bind a single page into a book let's say i want to bind this into my journal how can i bind it into my journal i want this to be page in my journal how can i do that and the way that i would do that is you can use a little bit of washi tape on both sides so essentially you're gluing this side to this paper and this side to this paper and that keeps it in place but what if you wanted to make a proper journal like a journal with signatures with folded pages let's say you have two pages like this and let's say you have some really pretty imagery here and you really don't want to take this page and fold it in half because the writing is going the wrong way the pictures are going the wrong way how can you bind these two pages into a journal and i have spoken about this before so sorry if i'm repeating myself but what you would do is you would hinge the pages together and then bind it into a journal so the way that i used to do this is i would apply a little bit of glue probably not this one because it's going to warp the pages but just for demonstration purposes i would apply glue there i would glue the pages together overlap them glue them together wait for that to dry and then you fold it in half it's not dry yet but you fold it in half and you have a page that you can bind into a signature you can put together with your other pages another way that you can do this if you don't want to overlap and bind what i've also done in the past is i will put two pages together like this maybe overlap a little bit and then put it through my sewing machine using zigzag stitch and i'm essentially stitching the paper together like this and i'll show you an example as well of what i mean by hinging here's another one of my journals this is a cheesecloth covered journal and i have a tutorial on this as well this is a large journal so people have asked me when they saw this journal where do you get those large pieces of paper i have some small pieces of paper there as well but let me show you if you can see i hope you can i have hinged those pages together they have been hinged together and then sewn into my journal so hinging is the answer the any way that you can put two pieces of paper together like this you can either overlap or put them side by side maybe use washi tape you know stick them together like this and then i would go ahead and i would apply washi tape on the ins i don't want to waste my washi tape let's pretend this is washi tape it's just sticky tape and i just glue my pieces of paper together fold them and there we go the next question is what's that thing you use to poke holes with the correct name is an all this is called an awl this one i got in some craft shop and it's not even it wasn't even i'm not sure what exactly this was intended for but it wasn't intended for book binding but anything that can poke a hole works right this is actually a needle that i glued in into this handle here and if you don't have an oil then that's fine because you can just use a thumbtack you don't need any special stuff anything that can poke a hole through a whole bunch of pages works perfectly fine if you have an awl this is my favorite one because it's quite slender you know it's quite easy to poke that hole okay with the thumbtack it might be a little bit harder but it will still do the job this one is quite a thick one but i still use it it does make larger holes you can see that one makes larger holes you can use a needle i just happen to have this large one handy and you know it will definitely poke a hole so there are ways next question what thread and needle do you use to bind journals let's start with needles anything that that is has some thickness to it you can't use those really thin sewing needles because you won't be able to get your binding thread through the eye so this one i would say it's a little bit too thick it would leave quite large holes in my signature this one is my perfect sized binding needle and i'm not exactly sure what size this is but i don't know if i compare it to a sewing needle you can kind of see the difference i purchased a whole bunch of needles like this and they were you know in a two dollar shop and they came with these large needles you see and then there's all these tiny little needles here and these are the needles that i use for my binding as long as they have a large enough eye but you don't want the eye to be too large because they will stretch that hole so you want an eye that's not too large but large enough for whatever thread you're using so let's move on to that next what thread i will pretty much use anything that i can get my hands on but generally in book binding we like to use waxed thread got mine from ebay and basically it's a very strong thread and it's been waxed it's got a bit of wax on it which means that it slides through the project or the paper in this case much easier i also use embroidery floss depending on the size of my journal for something a little bit more bigger and something a bit more exquisite i will use my wax thread all of these projects that i did recently where i did this a particular type of binding japanese step binding i actually used embroidery floss it's a bit harder to work with because it's got all of those diff all of those different strands you know like embroidery floss has six different strands or something like that so you have to be mindful when you're binding not to go through the threads or in between the threads but it still works and pretty much to be honest any thread will be fine for for binding some journals if i'm doing a mini booklet like just a quick little mini booklet that doesn't have too many pages and goes into a pocket in a journal for example i will use something like this any thread that i can get my hands on i probably you wouldn't use this one because it's quite thin so the thinner the thread the more chance it's going to rip through paper so to sum up when i'm binding large journals or journals in partic in in general i will go with wax thread and now that we're on the subject of wax thread if i wanted to use something like this this is just some type of twine right and i want to use this to bind my journals the reason why the thread is waxed and wax thread is like i said it slides through paper much easier when you're binding so it makes your job easier so you can also if you can get your hands on some beeswax like this i got this really cheap on ebay you can wax your own thread you can wax embroidery floss too if you want so you would just run your thread a couple of times through the beeswax and you have waxed thread and this is what i used to do before i actually um went ahead and purchased wax thread it's probably easier just to go and buy wax thread but you most definitely can wax your own thread and now i have waxed twine and there we go i feel like i've been talking for 10 hours straight so i hope that you learned some new things i hope that you gained some new insight into the things that you already know if you have any more questions you would like me to cover please let me know please tell me what is the one thing that you learned from this video that you didn't know before thank you for watching and i'll see you in my next video bye

Channel: Treasure Books

Views: 29,692

Rating: 4.9801979 out of 5

Keywords: Frequently asked questions about junk journals, how to price a junk journal, natasa treasure books, treasure books tutorials, craft room tour, craft room organization, distressing paper, what is the purpose of a junk journal, what is a junk journal used for, what is a junk journal signature, best glue for paper crafts, sewing on paper, sewing on paper with sewing machine, sewing on paper for beginners, book binding for beginners, thread for binding books, book binding methods

Id: jl800wjSQCI

Length: 59min 29sec (3569 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 15 2021