 Hey guys, welcome to another year. I'm another year. Another week with my year 2017. So I'm gonna come out this week my week with a short series of three videos spaced out over the week. Demonstrating to you guys how I put this quick little easy cute journal together with things I had I didn't go out and buy anything. I already had everything that I used in my stash. Alright, so and I'll also talk you through some substitutions that you could make depending on what you have in your stash. So this first video is just to talk about the materials that I used for the cover. That's what we're gonna talk about today. I'm not gonna show you the inside yet. So the basic chipboard cover was a I think a Tim Holtz cover because it has had these two eyelets in it already. And I think it's intended for his little set of two binder rings that he has. I think that's what this is from. I'm pretty sure I got it on clearance somewhere, probably. I don't know if they make them anymore. You could definitely do something like this out of an old cereal box chipboard that you already have in your stash. And I'm gonna measure it for you real quick here. It measures about from one end to the other end. It's just a just a 16th of an inch shy of 11 inches. And it is about 7 inches tall. The spine is about one and a half inches. So that gives you some dimensions there to work with. It already had the fabric cover like I said, but you definitely could just use chipboard or a cereal box and create your own cover. You can you put eyelets in the spine or not in the last video you will you'll see why I have this here and I'm liking the eyelets. You also have been probably noticing throughout the year in our my year videos and other social media posts that I post throughout the year that I've been creating a lot of my own DIY embellishments, whether it is painted feathers. Let me zoom in a little bit. There we go. So whether it is painted feathers and broidery floss wrapped sticks, literally these are sticks off of bushes from my yard. In the background here, you can see a piece of the plastic stained glass. We've done that with my year before. And there's other found objects from around my studio. A piece of driftwood sent to me by my friend Cindy Utter wrapped with some metallic wire. I occasionally buy odd lots of stuff off of eBay and I have a bunch of watch parts from one of those odd lots. So I pulled a few things and some springs out of that box. I had some stencils from Mike Deakin helps me get my stencils cut and I had some prototypes that didn't quite make it, let's say, and he sent me the pieces anyway and at first I was like, what am I gonna do with that? And then I was like, oh wait, so you can see little pieces of them poking out here in the background. This is a Tim Holtz word card from one of his many little mini decks of cards and this is the one that he has as just words. This brass clip. You can find these in a lot of places. These were originally, as far as I know, made for Midori Travelers notebooks. I got these off of Wish for a couple bucks. They weren't expensive. And I just shoved that in there. Along with the cover, some elastic cord, some tags, a piece of cardstock, some notebooks, that's what you're gonna need. So if you haven't painted any feathers or made any plastic stained glass, you don't have to, base what you put on your cover with what you have in your stash, look around at those unique things you've been saving, like unique and or weird, honestly, like the driftwood, like the watch parts that you've been hoarding, collect them, put a little group of things together. I'm gonna show some clips in here right now of me doing exactly that, where you see me gathering my pieces and parts. There's just a little short clip and trying to figure out what's gonna work on the journal cover and what's not. And I'll be back in the next video and you'll see me actually attaching things to the cover and trying to figure out in my mind. I don't think that's actually, it's not actually on camera, but trying to figure out in my mind what's gonna go in the journal and how exactly I'm gonna use this, which is where that comes into play. So this is video number one. Get your cover materials together and get that covered and put together. Gather your decorations for the cover, whatever you think you might want to use. You're gonna need some glue. You're gonna need, I actually, I used some wire here, so you might want to use wire. You're gonna need some clips. You might need an inspirational word. I wanted to, I was thinking about putting another something else here, but I just, for some reason, I like the smile. So anyway, we will be back in a couple of days, and I'll show you exactly how I put this together and show you some more clips of what my process was for doing that and how exactly I did that. Don't forget to check out the video description if you're not part of my year 2017 and you'd like to be, which is what this video is created for. The link is in the description below. We are coming out with a new Facebook group for the new year and at this time it is open to having people join the new group in preparation for starting in January. The link for that will also be in the description below, along with links to my Etsy shop, my tip jar, if you'd like to support my free content here on YouTube and over at Facebook, and a bunch of other stuff. So check it out. I do sell some of the plastic stained glass and the painted feathers in my Etsy shop, if you'd like to just buy some rather than make them. All right, that's it for today. The most important thing, of course, is to go out and have a great day. Do something nice for yourself because you deserve it. I'll see you in a couple of days for part two and that's it for today. Bye guys.