Now I’m home, I’m steadily going through the ephemera and gathering my journal and “project life” pages together.  I thought it might be useful to review how the pocket journal held up to the trip and how I managed to keep my daily journalling going.

The pocket journal itself remained on my desk in our suite and I simply put a few journalling cards in my pocket each day to scribble on as and when I felt like it.  when I returned at the end of the tour, I’d tuck the cards in the appropriate pocket, along with any other ephemera I had collected.  Anything that I wanted to keep but which didn’t seem to fit in the pocket, I put in the small concertina file I’d taken along with me, too.

But somewhere around half way through, disaster struck.  The quantity of stuff that I was collecting caused the flimsy acetate binding to tear and I needed to do a running repair with some washi tape – itself not the strongest of media.  But it held out ok and I simply took care with it for the rest of the trip.

By the time I got home, I had a very full book and I realised that I hadn’t allowed enough “breathing space” on the spine.  I ought to have been a little more generous with those measurements.

The other design issue was as a result of cutting it out with the Silhouette.  The “scored line” is actually a perforated line, and you know what happens to perforated lines, don’t you?

Another lesson learned, though most of the book had withstood the journey fairly well.

First job was to cut the binding string and remove the acetate spine.

I reinforced the torn pages inside and added another layer of paper to create a stronger construction.

I then taped the sections together more securely – I think it was unreasonable to expect a piece of flimsy acetate to hold it all together with hindsight and this time, I chose some Japanese adhesive fabric tape – bought in Japan, needless to say ;-)

When I’d done, it looked a bit like medical sticking plaster which rather amused me. Had I been able to get a better colour, then it might have looked more artful, but hey, sometimes an elastoplast/band aid is exactly what’s needed, isn’t it?

It was holding together much better so I replaced the stitching using the same red and white butchers string.

I wasn’t sure whether to cover this up at this stage

or to leave the spine stitching exposed.

I decided to leave it open and cut the paper (almost!) flush.

I added a title and finished the cover off and it’s done.

It’s now sitting on my shelf with the other travel journals.  I think soon, it will be time for a bigger shelf, don’t you?