Let me just get it out of the way that the velcro loop is not aligned with the tab. Sigh. I'll do better next time. Other than that I love love love it.
Here's a closer shot of the creepy characters I was talking about. I love the little girl in pink.
Inside flaps.
It has pen holders and a business card holder. It doesn't close very well with pens tucked inside though- a bit of a design flaw. For the next one I would probably skip the pen pockets and put a loop along the outer edge instead (above the velcro closure tab).
I also decided to add a ribbon bookmark. Another design has you install a ribbon bookmark as well as ribbon closure ties and that does sound awfully cute.
Here's the back cover.
And finally the details of the characters hanging out on the back.
I had a blast making this and would definitely do it again. I did have some trouble in a couple of detail areas. The first was determining which direction to cut the pieces so that the final product would be right side up. You cannot cut all the pieces the same way if your fabric design has direction. Here's my cheat sheet:
Front Cover: the 16 1/4" edge should run along the top/bottom of the design. (Cut wide.) A band along the center will be covered by the decorative band piece so be aware of that. (You could very easily skip the decorative band FYI.)
Inside flaps: the 10 3/4" edge should run along the sides of the design (Cut tall.) You'll be folding in half so you'll lose half the design. If you do care about this make sure you have one piece that you like the right half and one that you like the left half as one will be front and one will be back flap.
Lining piece: the 11" edge should run along the top/bottom. (Cut wide.) Doesn't matter a ton because you don't see it when the cover is on the journal.
Decorative band: the 18" edge should run along the top/bottom. (Cut wide.) You'll be folding in half the long way so bear that in mind. I wound up doing creative ironing to make sure you could see my funny faces along the band.
Pen/Pencil pocket: the 10 3/4" side should run along the sides of the design. (Cut tall.) Also you'll be folding the whole thing in half top to bottom so you want the desired design to sit on the bottom half of the tall sides.
Business card pocket: the 5" side will run along the top/bottom (Cut wide.) and like the pen/pencil pocket you'll be folding in half top to bottom so you want the design you like to be on the bottom half of the cut piece.
Velcro closure: the 5" side will run along the top/bottom. (Cut wide.) Then the piece gets folded width-wise and so you want your desired design to be on the RIGHT side of the center.
Here's my penciled notes with smiley faces if that helps at all:
Speaking of that velcro closure, I think that the instructions have it backwards. If you follow the diagram then you'd have the flap attached to the front and then you would loop it to the back to close. I disagree with that philosophy so I pinned the flap to the back (left-hand) edge of the cover piece and I stitched the loop of velcro tape to the right hand side. That resulted in the closure you see above where my flap attaches to the front.
This was definitely a fun exercise in visualizing what each step would ultimately look like on the finished book in order to get all my little faces aligned.
