Paper Bag Journal

Last week on The Artistic Biker's ustream show, hosted by Blade, we, the viewers were challenged to make an art journal from paper bags. This is the journal that I made. 

I gathered some bags.... it would appear I have quite a few paper bags. 

Small ones

medium ones

and large ones

I have lots of other paper bags too, I think I may have a paper bag problem lol

I chose 8 of different sizes and colours and added duck tape to the edges, this was to strengthen then so I could add holes. 

NB. The tape I used is DUCK tape not duct tape, I buy mine from my local Asda store where they have a great selection of colours and patterns at £3 per roll. 

I punched holes at 2cm intervals using a cropadile. 

Then I waxed some black crochet cotton and started to stitch the bag pages together, at this point I had no idea what kind of covers I wanted to make, so I just stitched loosely, knowing I would need to stitch again once I decided on covers. 

A few days later i opted to just use corrugated cardboard from a large box as my covers. I strengthened both covers with strips of Duck Tape.  The covers measure approx 13 by 16 inches. The bags inside are various sizes. 

Front

and back

I then punched holes in the covers to match the bags and I stitched the whole lot together. 

Once open you can see that the journal opens fully and the bags lay flat. 

Here is a quick video flip through of the finished journal... now all I have to do is fill it with artwork!!!

Hope you like it, why not recycle your paper bags and make a journal too. 

Darcy x