Pocket insert for a journal

 Can you tell I'm on a little bit of a journal journey here?  I've been having so much fun making little pockets and Happy Mails that I started trying to figure out what else these little gems could be used for and with my last post being on inserting the Happy Mail pouch as a pocket page in a journal I thought ...why not make a few more pockets and make them a bit fancier than just normal pockets.  These little guys can be used in the corners of a page or even in the middle if you'd like and though I'm only making 1 Journaling card to slip inside the pocket I believe you could get 3 inside each pocket.  Talk about easy to make!  1 sheet of 12"x12" single sided card stock will get you 4 pockets and 8 journal cards to slip inside.  I used my Mini Envelope Punch Board to make these.

Cut a 12"x12" piece of cardstock into 4 pieces measuring 3"x12".  Then take each 3x12 and cut to 3x6.  4 of the 3x6's will make the pockets and the other 4 will make the journal cards which you will cut to measure 2 3/8" x 3".  You will get 8 of these.  If you want you can always use the entire 12 x 12 sheet for the pockets and use a separate sheet of cardstock for the journaling cards.  It's really up to you.

Now for the punch board.  Slide each pocket into the punch board to the little number 2 and punch...flip and punch the other side the same.  Do this at all 4 corners of the unfolded pocket.  See photo:

Next you're going to make the journal cards.  Line the top left corner with the point of the little arrow on your punch board.  Flip the card and to the same to the right side.  This time remove the little tiny tabs on the far left and the far right leaving the center tab intact.

After removing tabs from the pockets and the card inserts this is what you should have.

Now fold your pocket and glue the sides using a very thin line of wet glue.  I do not recommend red tape (score tape) or tape runners for this as they stay sticky and your journal cards might stick.

Now the above sample journal card is white but using a single sided printed card stock can work to.  In fact I though I was only going to like it white but since alot of the printed cardstocks have white on one side, you would still have a place to do some journaling.  I also made some of these out of vellum.  Instead of gluing I used washi tape on the sides.  The white journal cards looked great in those but the printed cardstock ones did too.  Here are just some of the ones I made before adding embellishments.

As you can see I made a little punching booboo with the bottom vellum one on the left but it still looks ok.  But since I'm a perfectionist I'll probably replace the card and turn that one into a tag for something else.  Below is another bunch of pockets.

They are not all decorated yet but I will get to that soon.  These things are so addicting.  Now what am I going to do with all these???  Well Happy Mail comes to mind.  I will probably send 1 embellished and then some blank ones so the person can add their own embellies to suit their taste.

Well I'm off to clean up my scraps and probably make some embellishments out of the tiny pieces before I toss the scraps that can't be used.

So til next time...............................................

HAPPY CARDING