Dina Wakley tab book

I'm overwhelmed by all the demos available right now. Artists are sharing ideas and techniques to help everyone get through this Covid-19 insanity. Some are doing Facebook/Instagram live sessions. There is a lot of inspiration flying around right now. 

Dina Wakley has been doing demos since mid-March and here's the link that inspired this post:

Dina's Tab Book March 18

So after watching Dina's demo I decided I had to make the tab book. I told a group of artist friends and we decided to do a virtual session and make them together. It was really fun.

I took chip board, pieces that were 8 1/2 by 11" and cut them in half. I painted half of them with regular gesso on both sides, and the rest with Ranger black gesso. Then let them dry.

Dina suggested using sticky back canvas for the tabs to "bind" this book. I discovered a package from long ago and decided to save this because I'd love to make a book with colorful binding.  Since I had a black and white book in the works, I opted for white duct tape.

I find that the easiest way to manage pieces of duct tape is to use a cutting mat and line up and cut the pieces in advance. I made a stash of pieces that are 2" by 1.5" and these will be my tabs that will secure the pages of the book.

In her demo Dina used 2 tab pieces on one page and then 1 and alternate for all the pages. She suggests other options, and since my pages are larger, I opted to use 3 on one and 2 on the other, alternating them. This secured the journal nicely. We followed her instructions and voila, I have a journal.

  

The inner pages have either two corresponding tabs, or three. I am not bothered by the fact that I didn't line them up evenly, as you can see below. I'll be filling this book up with art and hopefully the tabs will melt away.

Last, but not least, I made sure I posted my book on Instagram. I really love this book and I know I'll be making more.