Are you looking to design your own custom die-cut journal? Here, we explore how craft techniques can be harnessed to create a journal cover. Craft is a popular choice with its unique ability to develop embossed covers. But with the die-cut journal, we take it further, offering you the freedom to personalize your cover. It’s a hand-die and pre-washed linen, a blank canvas for your imagination. You can cut a pocket stamp, poke holes in it, emboss it, or paint it, each action breathing life into your unique design. This process is a beautiful reflection of your personality, empowering you to create something unique.
In this blog, we have discussed everything you can use to create a cover for your journal. For instance, you might need a die-cutting machine, hand-dyed linen, embossing tools, and paints.
Let’s find out all the things for the same.
Table of Contents
What Is a Custom Personalized Die-Cut Journal Cover?
It is a handmade DIY personalized die-cut cover, which can be designed by one to add everything they want to add to drive a customized experience to use a journal. For example, you can start by choosing a design for your cover and then use a die-cutting machine to cut out the shape. Next, you can add personal touches, such as embossing or painting. The possibilities are endless!
How to Start Creating Custom Die-Cut Journals?
Let’s start by measuring and cutting down two pieces of craft, the size of which will depend entirely on the size of the journal cover you want to make. These pieces are 11 and 1/2 centimeters by 18 centimeters. It’s a simple process you can quickly master. You may have seen some prayer journals designed using the same process, resulting in a beautiful little journal that fits perfectly in your hand.
It’s sizeable and makes a beautiful little journal that hugs your hand. In addition to two pieces of Craft X, we will be using these dies, which are Sizzix thin lits. They’re from Tim Holtz alterations, and they’re called Wildflowers. We’re using these dies because they create a solid image when cut, which is ideal for our project.
The number two and the reason we use these is partly because they’re what we have in my stash. We always encourage you to use what you have if you have anything similar to this brilliant arrest. The other reason is that these are very thin dies and are a perfect test for this material.
The material will give a good block image now, but by that, they’re not so detailed. When we stamp out with them, you won’t be able to tell what the image is like when we were cut using these knots’ temperament.
You will see a finished, recognizable wildflower, which we have been experimenting with sometimes.
We tried other dies, such as word dies, but it didn’t work. It needs to be something that will give you a solid image. This set has both tall and short dies, and we will use two shorter dies. The reason for that is that we don’t want long dies.
It will go off the end of our cover edges, and we are happy with those positions. So, we will keep them in place using a little washtape. We have run them through my die-cutting machine. Now, to pop them out, we use wash tape. If you manage to peel it away cleanly and you don’t roll it up or rip. As you can see here, we stick it on the top of the die-cutting machine; we use those bits that can be reused many times. That’s a very thin die, yet it’s cut out beautifully.
We will be careful not to rip the tiny bits because we will use them. These little bits can add intricate details to your design, so handling them carefully is essential.
Crucial Things To Keep In Mind To Design A Die Cut Journal Cover
It’s always a good idea to check on the reverse, and if you can see the outline of where the cut has gone, you know it is okay to take this piece off. If you don’t see that, pop it through your machine again with a piece of paper on top to act as a shim.
- It gives you a solid image; this is our basic cover ready to go; we will work on a little piece of scrap white paper. But it gives us a chance to tell you that there are many other colors of craft, and in the information provided with each roll, you can see the different colors and how they’re used in some of those projects.
- They have all these (specific designer colors, such as pastels, metallics, or neon shades), so you can mix and match these projects precisely. If you had some white craft Material), this is how these would look on white; we have some blue denim here, which is just a beautiful color.
- We also assume that you’re only working with one color (craft material), which will give you the most out of it to glue this onto this piece, and to do that, use paste that we use a lot and really, really like. It’s acid-free, and this is a massive jar.
- Our preferred glue is not only easy to apply, but it also offers versatility in its use. Whether you apply it with a brush or a card, it’s a breeze. Plus, it’s easy to wash off, making clean-up a snap.
- Apply it really lightly because we don’t want it to soak into those little areas where it can get caught up on the cut spaces in the flower. Still, we are not on the right to the edge because we are sewing around the edge.
- You can pop glue through. This is a piece we want to glue our top piece to even though you will have cut your pieces to precisely the same size. Don’t worry if the top piece looks more significant than the underneath. It’s because it’s been through your die-cut machine, and it gets squished, and it goes a little bit bigger because Craft is a fantastic material; you can also dab away where the glue is.
- So this is just a wet wipe, and we press down and remove the glue while you can put the craft in. You can run it through a cycle, but it won’t kill it. Use another scrap paper to weigh it down, and use that pot again.
- Let it stick down properly while that other piece is drying. Let’s look at how to use the little die cuts left over. This is another piece of crafting linen. We cut it down to be the same size as the other one we want to add to the front cover, but they will look like this. We just need to decide exactly where we want to put them.
- That means we know that we need to find our center point and then measure where the holes will go – that will hold my signature. So, if you imagine that this is stretched out like that, you need to measure from the center point out, and you need to measure for.
- How many signatures do you want to have in your journal? We have made this template, and we use it quite frequently. We can use this to line up where all of the holes will go to use a Sharpie pen to show where those holes will be, and that’s where the holes will be, so we will make sure that we find the center point of my front page.
- Here, we will just fold this on that first line of holes, which tells the front page, or in the earlier example, that is our front page. We know there’s going to be about an inch for the signatures. This is a handy, quick way to ensure that you get anything you want to stick on your front cover roughly centered.
- We use our paste glue because we don’t need to use some [specific brand and type of glue, such as acrylic cosmic shimmer glue, known for its strong adhesion and shimmering effect], and glue those down.
- When the glue dries, it’s very nice, making it look like there’s a [raised pattern, also known as a relief pattern, a design element that appears to stand out from the material’s surface]. So that’s that one and then this one where we die-cut and then stuck the die-cuts onto another sheet underneath.
Tips You Should Learn While Applying Glue
A couple of tips we have learned is that if you find that the glue has yet to stick everything down, it’ll depend on how detailed your die cut is. These are very detailed, so where we found little bits popping up, we just went underneath and added an extra little bit of glue and then let that dry. Don’t worry about any glue sort of seeping out from underneath.
It is because if you then take your pokey tool, you can just very gently stroke it away, and then there’s no evidence left of any glue. In this one, we are going to sew around the outside, and we will just have the other piece of craft as the inside of this journal with one.
Learn how to apply glue on a piece of fabric to the journal’s inside. We will use our pace, the yes pace that was shown to you before, to do that, and then we’ll take it to my sewing machine and around the outside, and then I’ll trim it down with zigzag scissors.
Now sewing and we’ll bring them both back and show you how they looked when we finished sewing, and maybe you can see just a little thin line of stitching around the outside
edge as close as we can get to the edge and inside some nice fabric.
Make that up into a little booklet, and this one is perfect for showing you that you can stitch through two layers of Kraft-Tex. Just make sure you give your needle time to go up and
down, don’t rush it – just take it nice and slowly, and then it has a beautiful cover.
This is how you can complete your die-cut journal, and it will provide you with the best thing you want to have.
How Can USA Pad Assist With Die Cut Journal Cover?
We understand that not everyone can get started with a DIY journal as it needs time and interest to design by delicately working on it. However, everyone requires their lovest thing to drive a personalized experience, whether one is looking to gift someone or wants to use a journal for their own purpose.
So, to meet this high demand and introduce people to a rich-quality die-cut journal, we have rich-quality and all types of journals designed by our experts that you will love to use for you. Our created die-cut journals come in a wide variety that you will love to have, and the best part is that you will like to have a law-priced journal of top quality to use for any of the purposes you want.
Wrapping Up
Die-cut journals are not just about personalization and versatility; they also offer a quick and efficient way to create unique covers. With a variety of colors to choose from, they are a wonderful medium for craft and journal makers, allowing you to focus more on your creative process.
If you are seeking a creative and well-designed journal of remarkable quality from a reliable provider, USA Pad is a top option you can rely upon to get the best quality you are looking for. You can choose from a wide variety of options or ask for the customized solution you want to have for your use. Connect with our team right now to have a quote – for the same product or its related products.