Finishing my pages

My May page has been done since April 29th. Need a photo, which I'll put here later.

I have to thank my husband for going out and buying me a sewing machine so I could finish up my pages. I borrowed one but it didn't have a regular zig zag stitch (can you imagine?). Target was having a sale on basic machines and I figured I could go with that.

It works fine (even if it's a little slower than I'm used to).

I learned something in trying to figure out how to finish my pages. Have a plan before you have to finish 12 pages at one time. My loose plan was to have a fabric page that was a pocket so I could slide each months written journal page inside. I wanted it with no seams on the outside but that was not going to work unless I hand sewed each page, right sides together and then turn them. Since I beaded almost every page to the edge of the 4 inch square, that wasn't going to work (with a machine).

So I zigzagged. And I decided it needed more body than 2 pieces of faux suede: I added Pellon Peltex 72. Which by the way is pretty heavy: more about this later.

Each page is 3 layers thick. Black faux suede for the back, Peltex 72 in the center and then the beaded brown faux suede.

I bead texturally, so almost all of my pages have some thickness. When I stacked all the pages together, it was about 6 inches I think. (I still have to measure it). I decided to use grommets and D rings.

3 layers of heavy materials is a royal pain in the butt to put a grommet thru. Really, really, really. Just making the holes was difficult. I ended up using a copper wire that I stuck in a flame and then tried to melt a hold big enough for the front side of the grommet. Mostly tha worked but it took a long time. Too bad the grommet are too small for me to have used the danged soldering iron! I could have done it in record time with that!

I sat on the floor and pounded grommets until my back complained so loudly I had to get up. And let me tell you, it's a good thing I have a package of 50, even tho I only need 24! I have 5 more to do. Wish me luck.