Glue Blues

I’m having issues with glue. Some of my older journals have pieces coming unstuck and falling out, or worse the glue has turned yellow and discoloured the page.

The main culprit seems to have been a glue tape I was using at the time. I can’t remember what brand it was though, and it doesn’t seem to match the width of any of my current glue tapes. The other guilty party is glue sticks. Sometimes they seem to just dry out and not stick at all.

It’s hard to find something that’s travel friendly AND doesn’t wet the page too much AND dries quickly for when you’re on the go AND sticks well AND doesn’t eventually discolour the page. I think an adhesive that does all these things would be the magical unicorn of glues!

So a question for you: What type of glue do you use in your journal? Why do you like it?

Yet another new traveler’s notebook insert

I can’t help myself, I just keep making them!

blue_insert_notebook

This one is made from paper taken from a cheap school project book (lined one side of the page, blank the other). The front page is patterned paper I bought in a pack from Aldi and the cover is a cut down Collected & Co. file folder from Big W.

blue_insert_notebook_3I plan on using this insert as a journal, writing on the lined pages and using the blank pages for decorating and gluing in ephemera.

blue_insert_notebook_2

notebook_inserts

Rainy days, and a new traveler’s notebook insert

A couple of weeks ago we had a major rainy afternoon. It bucketed down like crazy. Just as I was stepping off the bus another storm cell hit and dumped even more water from the sky. By the time I was halfway home my backpack was completely soaked.

Luckily just about everything survived the deluge, important stuff like my mobile phone and my work diary were damp but okay. My fauxdori (homemade Midori Traveler’s Notebook) was not quite so lucky. The leather cover dried out nicely but the notebooks inside were all water damaged at the bottom.

Water damaged handmade notebook

This was one of my handmade inserts. The fountain pen ink has run and the paper has torn where the elastic holds it. The genuine Midori notebooks fared a little better. There was still a lot of ink run, but the spines didn’t tear and the paper dried out fairly nicely.

It was time for a quick notebook replacement. Enter the trusty guillotine and a cheap 64 page exercise book.

Re-sized exercise book

Re-sized exercise book - close-up

A perfect replacement for my everyday jottings notebook – no need for fancy paper here. Just need to decorate the cover now.