DIY Family Journals Bound: Morocco

Finally! Last year in March we took, what was to us, an epic one month trip to Morocco. We saw the Atlas mountains, the Sahara desert, the markets of Marrakesh and Fes and chilled in the sea-side town of Essaouira. And a bunch of other stuff too. While we were there, we journalled our faces off. If that's a word. We brought art supplies. We wrote down our experiences. We mapped our adventures. We collected postcards and brochures for gluing in as well. We started with pre-made blank signatures which I posted about here before we went on our trip.

Now this is what I've been staring at for a year now. Filled signatures waiting to get bound together.

First we cut the piece of thick cardboard I recently hoarded, down to size.

Next we backed a map of Fes with some Tyvek paper to give it some extra strength.

We glued in the cardboard covers, leaving enough space to sew in the signatures down the centre spine.

Wrapped and glued the map/Tyvek sheet over onto the edge of the inside covers.

We made a template for where the binding holes were in each signature. We used this to poke holes in the spine, in preparation for sewing them in.

After they were all sewed in, we glued in end sheets on the inside of both the front and back covers.

Done! Is it perfect? Oh dear no. It's full of handmade flaws and "learnings" for our next ones; but every boo boo was made with heart and we are thrilled to have this as a truly personal momento of our trip. Here are some of our highlights from the inside:

A few of the post cards and photos we had printed for
 Spud's show-and-tell at school when we got back.

I sometimes added thought starters to Spud's journals.
We found the signatures with grid paper useful
for making up mazes or playing yahtzee.

We took the book Drawing Lab with us so we could do
 drawing projects on the way, like blind contour drawings of camels!
Bottom left was inspired by Angry Birds.

Top left is a map I did, under Spud's direction, documenting the world
 we created in our room, one rainy afternoon, with a lot of pillows
 and a lot of imagination. I don't know what the top
right is anymore but it looks fun!

Phew. Now it's time to get busy on our Vienna journals. Then our London ones. Hopefully it will take less than a year this time!