Envelope journal tutorial (kind of)

Hey lovelies! I've just gotten into making journals out of manila envelopes. This one is made from a 6 X 9 inch manila envelope.

 

There is a pocket in both the front and back covers.

 

To begin I lay out the envelope flat, and remove the clasp if it has one.

 

Next I make sure all of the overlapping places are securely closed. We will be matting over these places and do not want the extra lumps of a loose flap.  After that is done, trim a super thin sliver off of the bottom closed end of the envelope. This will be the pocket in the front cover of the journal. I'm sorry but I didn't take a picture of the gluing or trimming.

 

Next I measured 1/2 an inch from the flap fold and marked it lightly in pencil on the top and bottom.

 

In the picture I drew a line so you could see better where I was talking about. Then I make angular cuts to make folding the marked part of paper inside the envelope easier. I put the piece of paper in the cut, so you can see how I angled mine.

 

I then applied glue, white craft glue, to the inside of paper to be folded, and tucked it under.

Next snip off those little corner pieces sticking out.

 

Measure in again from the flap fold on both sides. This time only go in 1/4 inch, and fold. This will be your flap spine.

 

Next make your center spine. I folded the bottom edge (that we cut the sliver off of ) to the original fold line of the flap, and then measured going from that line, toward the flap,  1/4 inch. This will be your spine.

 









 

From here I just matted the front and back covers and sewed in my two, six page signatures and added a button closure and ribbon to wrap around it.

 

These can be as fancy or as plain as you want! Experiment and have fun! Happy Crafting!

What if I can't afford punches?

Being a single income family is hard. Crafting on a limited budget doesn't mean you can't have all of the embellishments that you desire.  All it takes is some creativity and patience. What I've done is to go around the house and find objects similar in size to what I wanted. I found circles in many sizes, a raffle ticket, a baby food container lid (the plastic rectangle containers) a foam star that fell off of one of the projects the girls made at church, a journaling card that I was gifted, and a banner I made.

 

All I did was cut these out of Kraft cardstock. These will be great templates until I can afford all of the punches I want.

 

Crafting is supposed to be fun, so no need to stress over the things we don't have.  So go out there, and find a way to do what you love! Happy crafting lovelies!

I made the most amazing popsicles today! Sugar free, Keto friendly, and they tasted like Orange Dreamsicles. You'll need a blender.
1 4serving pkg of sugar free orange jello (but you can use any flavor)
1 1/2 cups of ice
1/3 cup boiling water
1/3 cup of ice cold water...
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
2 Tablespoons Heavy Whipping Cream
sweetener, I used a squirt of stevia liquid,

Mix the jello and boiling water, and disolve powder, then add ice cold water and set to the side.
In blender put ice cubes, vanilla and sweetener, and whipping cream, then pour in jello water. Blend until smooth. This can be a single serving, that's how the recipe came to me, minus 1Tbsp of the heavy cream. I add the second one for a little more volume as I'm putting mine into 8 popsicle molds. If you're using as a single serving, you can eat as soon as you've blended it smooth. For pops, just spoon into your molds, then put the sticks in and freeze for about 2 or 3 hours and that's it. My kids LOVE them just as much as I do.

I count the whole recipe as one carb, as there are only .43 carbs per tablespoon of liquid Heavy whipping cream.

 

This is the Strawberry Banana flavor I made. I didn't add the Vanilla and used a cup of frozen strawberries in place of 1 cup of the ice.  Now this will up the carb count significantly. 1 Cup of frozen berries is 10 net carbs, and this recipe made 10 popsicles, so that would make them around 1 carb per pop. Still not a bad treat for the summer time!

 

In the background is my first attempt at making cloud bread. Not too bad, good for a sandwich, but I think I'll try soul bread soon.  Any fellow low carbers out there have any recipe suggestions?