Those of you who occasionally wander over to my own internet living room might be aware that I often post bookmaking tutorials there. When we decided on nature journaling as our TMG theme for this week, I realized that it made for the perfect opportunity to indulge my enthusiasm for all things book by sharing a favorite bookmaking project with you all!
This nature journal is incredibly basic and easy to put together. I first learned a variation of this project at a teaching conference some years ago, and I definitely remember being impressed with how quickly it came together. The aesthetically-minded may find the twig and rubberband binding technique to be somewhat lacking in the style department, but I assure you that it serves an important purpose. Using the rubberband rather than something more permanent, such as stitching or adhesive, means that the journal can be easily taken apart to add new pages any time that you need to. This is a really handy feature in a nature journal, I think. This is particularly true if your kiddos enjoy pasting things to the pages and fill up their space quickly.
Here we go!
Nature Journal with Twig Binding
What you will need:
heavy weight paper or card stock for the cover
paper for inside pages
a twig
a rubberband
holepunch
ruler
pencil
What you will do:
Cut your paper and card stock to the desired size. I cut an 8 1/2 by 11 inch piece of card stock in two, ending up with two pieces each 8 1/2 inches by 5 1/2 inches. Cut your inside pages to the same size as the cover sheets. How many pages to include in your book is absolutely up to you. I think we started with about twenty here.
Make two marks on each cover piece for holepunching, one towards the top and the other towards the bottom. I made marks 1/2 inch in from the vertical edge and 1 inch in from each horizontal edge.
Punch a single hole at each of your marks so that you now have a hole towards the top of each cover piece and one towards the bottom. Punch holes in corresponding locations on your inside page pieces.
Find a small stick or twig that is approximately the same length as the vertical edge of your journal cover. Stack your cover and inside pages in the order that you want them in for the finished journal, carefully lining up the holes.
Loop one end of your rubberband around the twig and pull the other end through the hole at the top of the journal.
Turn the journal over and pull the rubberband down the backside of the journal, bringing the free end of it through the bottom hole and back to the front of the journal.
Wrap the free end of the rubberband around the bottom end of the twig, effectively attaching the twig to the front of the journal and binding the edge of the book closed.
And that's it! We decorated the cover of our journal with stamps and cut-out paper leaves. You might also think about adding an envelope to the inside cover for stashing treasures in when out and about. You can download a template for a tiny envelope that will fit nicely inside the journal by clicking the link below:
Happy journaling!
--- Annie
