The main variations Wendy made included having grommets, or eyelets, on every page. My previous album only had grommets on the covers. The pages certainly turn more easily and wear far less as she makes them, so this was a process that I really appreciate her showing.
The second thing I liked was her addition of board inserts between the sections. These add great stability and form to the journal. However, they also add bulk, so I am in two minds about these. I have left them in at present, but if the recipient wants to add a lot more ephemera to the journal, these two pages could easily be removed to free up space.
Thirdly is the three small signature-like journals contained within the construction...
The main reason I don't like this binding method, despite the positive advantages of being able to move, add and swap pages so readily, is the required size of the rings.
Personally I much prefer a smooth spine which allows the journal to sit quietly on a bookshelf. The size of the rings, also always seems disproportionate to the size of the journal or album, but these are just my own preferences, I know. I have tried rings, D-rings, anything I could find, but none solve the problem of the required circumference of the rings in proportion to the album/journal pages.
The size of ring that was required to make this little journal a comfortable size, without any unseemly stress on the covers, was three and a half inch rings. These just looked silly, so I stuck with the two inch rings, in the end.
Another solution to the binder ring issue that I have played with has been to use ribbon or thread instead of the rings so as to get rid of the metal...It would need to be strong though...I considered a plaited heavy fishing cord, maybe waxing it first...I might have a play with that later on...just to see if I can find a sensible solution to this issue.
I did not use all the inserts that Wendy used in her tutorials, for some reason my journal was much thicker than hers.
As I was using only from my scrap box(es) maybe my materials were thicker than hers...another thing I did differently was to fully wrap the covers...I prefer not to have the chipboard edges raw on any of my journals now.
Note: This blog post is very image rich...I keep them as a record of my projects, so if you are intending to proceed further, be warned!
Bye now,
Di