A bit ago, when I released the first of the Tiny Art Journals, I did so with the request that if you made one, I totally wanted to see it when you got it put together.  (Optional, of course.)  They’re just so much fun to design (there are three of them sitting on my hard drive right now awaiting testing, in fact), and really nice to carry with you for tiny bits of random art or writing, that I kinda wanted to see what y’all could come up with.

And two people have sent me some neato mods they’ve made to the first one, so I just had to share. :)  (A couple folks posted pics to facebook or plurk/twitter, but I didn’t ask them if it was okay to post those pictures.  If one of ‘em was you, let me know and I’ll put ‘em up on the next round of showings-off.)

Like this one, made by Catherine:

Check out the cord closure!  And the inked edges of the paper, too!

Catherine said:

I printed the pages on ivory Canson paper, probably a bit too heavy a weight because I glued them back to back so all the pages are printed, no blanks. Then I inked the edges of the pages and the cover with a dark purple ink, just enough to give it some definition and hide the white bits from my less-than-fantastic paper trimming skillz. I did pamphlet stitch from the outside with some perle cotton, and left the ends hanging decoratively from the spine, and used the same thread and a couple of little star brads with loops on ‘em to make a closure. I don’t love the closure, so may still rethink that bit, and I think I’ll do something clever for the inside covers.

Can’t wait to see what bits of clever you come up with, Catherine!

Then there was Rachel, who, much like myself, appears to have a button fetish.  (I could totally go into my button fetish at length one of these days.  It’s an obsession, I tell you.  OBSESSION.)

Buttons!  Here:  let me show you a close-up.

And as if buttons on the front weren’t cool enough, check out the SPINE:

I admit it.  I got a little swoony when I saw these pictures.  Okay…a lot swoony.  I hadn’t thought of using buttons on the spine to reinforce the cardstock, but that’s totally the effect they’d have.  Awesome AND functional.

Rachel said, about her fun:

The string used to keep it closed is a piece of Malabrigo sock yarn, btw. (in the Archangel colorway).  The buttons are from my own button collection.  I think I accidentally printed the cover a bit too big, ’cause there’s a significant size difference between this journal and when I assembled the monster journal.  Oh well, I still think it rocks!

It DOES rock, Rachel!  And hellloooo….Malabrigo?  That’s just, like, icing on the little bit of goodnesscake.

One thing about the sizing, too — make sure your printer doesn’t have an “autorotate” or “autoscale” type feature.  Sometimes, it’ll scale down your stuff so that it “fits better”, even when you already know how it’s supposed to fit, thankyouverymuch.  On the plus side, that also means that you can scale this sucker to be even tinier if you want — just set things to print at 75%, or, if you’re wanting really tiny, 50%.  I can totally imagine a 50% printed/bound TAJ being used to hold only tickets, or tiny bits of things you find on a single walk, or the definitions of your favorite words….something small and focused and, well, cute.

I should have both TAJ #3 and #4 up this week, if life can slow down just a smidge.  I’m taking Tuesday as an all-design-all-the-time day on my Internet Free Day (more on that tomorrow, of course), so (fingers crossed) they should be done and tested by then.  (I don’t put it up unless it’s been made by me, at least once.)

If you missed them, you can get TAJ#1, the one you see up there, by clicking right here….and TAJ#2, the monster edition (and who doesn’t have creative monsters in the closet!?), by clicking here.

Thanks to Catherine and Rachel for sharing the fruits of their labours with us!