Music Journal Tutorial for Eileen Hull Designs

 Hello and welcome!

It's the turn of Eileen's Educators this week to share their tutorials for the blog hop projects we made using her new Chapter 4 Sizzix dies. I made this fabulous A5 Music Journal using the Full Size Journal Die and some gorgeous Stamperia Music papers which I had been saving for a special project .... as you do!

As a recap here is the walkthrough video so you can see the pages and wallets I created.

This is a long post! so grab a coffee and scroll through the tutorial which also includes a short video on how I did the elastic lacing for the A5 size UK books.

I started with the cover and you will know by now that I glue my papers onto the boards after they have been cut. This is particularly useful for this die as the 12 x 12 papers don't quite fit! As you can see there is a little gap. 

This is not a problem ..... on the inside I made a pocket which I could butt up to the spine .....

.... and on the outside I used a small strip which matched the spine. You can see that I clipped the corners with a corner rounder so that there is less of a problem with the papers coming unstuck and looking a little unsightly.

I kept the decoration to a minimum as the papers were just so beautiful and I didn't want to hide anything. I found this quote on one of the pages ..... quite appropriate after one has been playing the concertina !!

And I used the same bookplate tab for the spine - these come as part of the die.

For the inside I have used an A5 Notebook purchased from our local bookshop. I have split it into three, the cover and then split the pages in two.

It is a good quality book with a hardish cover and nice quality pages. 

I took the cover and covered the outside with some lovely plainish papers. 

I used a rounder corner on the edges once I had stuck the paper down. 

I covered the inside with some cream cardstock and then made a couple of pockets for each side.

These got filled with little labels, tags and a little book made from one of the tags. Again rounding the corners gives everything a nice neat professional finish.

And a collage of tags and pieces on the front cover. I had kept the cover plain so these lovely papers were not cluttered.

For the two notebooks I cut papers for a cover, rounding the edges to match the inside papers.

I made some wallet style pockets on the inside covers - I took a square of the paper and cut off a triangle at the top left hand side. 

I used some pearlised cotton to make a simple stitch in the booklet to hold it together. But the elastic does hold the notebooks inside so it is a matter of choice really.

And now to the elastic. As mentioned the UK A5 size Notebook is just a little too tall for this die without the pages getting a bit scuffed from the elastic. So I decided to work out a way of getting the elastic to run the full length of the spine inside, but with one piece, ie there are three elastic slots but only one knot. This is a real time video so you can follow along and stop the video when necessary. I thought I would need it as much as sharing it with you all ! I will never remember for another time. The elastic feels strong and holds the books in well.

If you are still with me .... well done !!

I hope there are some ideas that will enable you to create with this die. 

I really love the size of it and it is a great size for larger notes - in this case the music and notes I have kept from ten years of visiting Ireland's Concertina Workshops.

Do hop on over to Eileen Hull Designs to see lots of ideas from the Teams both for this Journal and also the Notebook which was released at the same time. You can't fail to be inspired by these lovely projects and also Eileen's Facebook Live every Tuesday and Thursday.

As always thank you for joining me and happy crafting.

Jennie x

Dies used:

Sizzix Scoreboards Plus Die Full Size Journal #665589