I have kept the pages inside my book plain and simple. At the moment there are separate sections for contact details, finances, classes etc as you will see but the intention is to move these into just one or two sections once the retreat is over and fill the pages with photos and jounalling.
The pages are held together in the book by a concertina spine made from folded paper. It was too difficult to photograph so at the end I will try to explain what I have done.
The pages are A5 and cut from fairly sturdy card.
For the simple decorating I have cut rounded corners and scalloped strips of paper to hold the notes sheets as you will see.
The rounded corners are simply inked and glued just inside the corners of the pages. I have then done a combination of straight and zig zag machine stitching around the outside in gold thread. This also strengthens the glued rounded corners.
The insert sheets have been printed on blue paper on an inkjet printer and I have used a scalloped border punch to add interest to the sheets.
On this page I have glued one of the pages to the inside of a plastic pocket. This makes a strong pocket to hold the various bits and pieces that the retreat owners have sent to me.
Further pockets have been added and can be held in place either with another plastic pocket as above or a bulldog clip. Once the retreat is over I'll probably decorate the various clips I have used with ribbons but for now it is more practical to have them plain.
2 pockets have been made for details of the classes, I will either print off or write out the materials needed for the classes so I can make up little kits before I go.
As I have been dealing with the money side of things I wanted to create a section to list all the finances. This could equally be used for finances for a holiday planner too.
These pages contain little tags. We have agreed that everyone will be taking passport sized photos to give out to each other. I'm hoping that my fellow retreaters will decorate a tag by adding the photo and a few words about the retreat on them.
In a holiday planner these could represent days or particular events that could be recorded with some journalling.
I want to make some notes of each day that we are there so I have made up giant tags and attached some plain paper to the back with a brad.
On the inside back cover I have glued a brown paper bag. This will be used for any memorabilia that I pick up over the weekend. It could also be used to store some photos. I'll decorate the outside when I return.
On the back of the journal I have attached a clipboard using 2 bulldog clips. I intend to write down directions and motorway junctions that I have to remember and it will be handy to use this clipboard in the car for easy reading.
The pages are held together with a concertina style spine made from sheets of paper. The pages of the book are glued together and sandwich the folds of the paper, this way the space between the pages can be determined by the size of the concertina.
In the diagram below the red lines are the A5 pages, the black line is the sheet of paper. The top 2 pages (first 2 red lines) and the bottom 2 pages (last 2 red lines) will have a greater depth capacity than the middle 2 because of the small concertina fold to the left of the diagram. The middle 2 pages won't.
The pages are glued back to back sandwiching the deeper folds of the paper (marked where it says "Glue these edges together"
Once the pages are glued together you can then cut a strip of card that is folded twice as below. This is glued inside the front and back covers under the first and last pages so the middle section creates a spine.
