Dos-a-dos journal

Over the past two weeks I have made three dos-a-dos or back-to-back journals like the ones below. My friend, Irene, sent me the one in the middle as a gift over the holidays and right away I knew that this was a journal for me.  I immediately set to work making it and then three more.  I mailed one to a friend in California as inspiration for her first journal.

Dos-a-dos Journal

If you are interested in making this journal I thought I would give you the steps as I photographed them during the construction process.

Here is what you need:

* three - 6 x 8 inch heavy cardboard....140# watercolor paper works but heavier is even better
* two -  24 x 8 inch 90# watercolor paper (140# will work)
* six -  6 x 8 inch 90# watercolor paper (140# will work)
* an awl or Japanese hole punch
* bookbinding thread
* bookbinding needle or equivalent
* three sheets of homemade paper or decorative paper for the covers 10 x 8 inches
* PVA or other good bookbinding glue.  I have used a good glue stick (Blick's brand)
* bone folder
* paper cutter


Just so you get an idea of how this is going to go together, here is a bird's eye during the construction process.

Bird's Eye of dos-a-dos during construction

Step 1:  Cut the two 24 x 8 inch paper and fold accordion style into fourths.

Step 2:  Cut the three pieces of cardboard 6 x 8 and cut designer or homemade paper 8 x 10.

Step 3: Cover the three pieces of cardboard with homemade or designer papers.  A good site to see how to do this step is:

http://www.designsponge.com/2013/03/bookbinding-101-accordion-book.html

Step 4:  Glue first accordion to one of the covers and glue the second cover to the back of the accordion.  After the gluing, you might like to place heavy books on top of the first part of the journal for a few minutes.

Step 5:  Glue the second accordion to to what will be the middle covered cardboard.  Finally glue the third covered cardboard to the back of the second accordion. Wipe off any extra or oozing glue and place books on top of the journal for awhile.

Step 6:  Now you are ready to fold each of the six  6 x 8 pieces of watercolor paper in half making sure that you have 3 x 8 inch folded paper when you fold each one.

Step 7:  Make a punch guide out of one of the folded papers.  You will want to punch the holes using your awl or Japanese hole punch in the fold at 2, 4, and 6 inches.  This punch guide is necessary so that all of your punches are the same for each of the six pieces of paper.  Punch holes in all six of the pieces of paper.

Step 8:  You will use one of the punched papers to guide you in punching the accordion folds six times, once in each valley.

Step 9:   Using the pamphlet stitch, sew in each of the 6 x 8 folded papers one per valley of your journal.  A good site for learning the pamphlet stitch is:  http://www.booklyn.org/education/ispamphlet.pdf  or  http://www.quietfiredesign.com/Galleries/Techniques/3HolePamphlet.htm .  The only difference in the directions for pamphlet stitching  at these sites and the one for the dos-a-dos is that  you will want to start sewing from the valley side of your journal each time.

Have fun!