Creating a DIY May Insert for the Jane Davenport Butterfly Book

I’m smitten with the Jane Davenport Mixed Media line. Ever since Michael’s released it in January, I haven’t been able to resist them.  At this point I have her Mermaid Markers, both watercolor sets, water brushes, two of her wonderful face stamp sets, 1 roll of her washi tape, her journaling tapes (blank and color your own designs!), the Inkcredible Pen, collage papers, Paint Over Pens, Base Paints, both sets of matte acrylic paints and possibly my favorite discovery, her Butterfly Book journal.  Phew! I didn’t quite realize how much of the line I had until I typed it all out.

But back to that Butterfly Journal.  I’ve found it’s the perfect blend of day planner and art journal for me.  By combining planner pages with art paper, I can keep track of my schedule and create art in the same book. Although I did purchase a few accessories from the line for it like the Washi Tape Holder/Stencil and the journal cover, when it came to buying the inserts, I decided to take the DIY route. I have a pretty good sized stash of watercolor paper and Bristol paper, so it just made sense to make my own little inserts. Of course that meant, creating some day planner pages in Word and printing them out as well.  I use Tomoe River Paper (after Davenparty Davenpeep Ali Brown mentioned it in post and a YouTube video) because it’s super thin, but nothing bleeds through.  I then intersperse those pages with watercolor and Bristol, giving me a surface to create art on right next to the weekly planner pages.

I’ve recorded myself creating my May 2017 insert so you can watch below.  Just a couple of things first:

• I cut my cover 8.5 x 8.5 inches so that it’s just slightly larger than my planner pages.
• I cut the inner pages to 8 x 8 inches. This was the size of the insert that came with the Butterfly book so I went with it. You could get away with something a little larger though if you felt the 4 inch wide pages were too small for you.
• I’m not OCD about getting everything perfect in my inserts. If a staple is slightly off center, etc. I just don’t let it bother me. For me it’s more about getting it into my Butterfly Book to use rather than having it perfectly aligned every time. I know that will drive some people crazy so you gotta do what makes you happy.
• I round the corners of my pages, mostly because that included insert when I bought the book had rounded corners and I just like the look. I’ve made them without rounding the corners before, but the corners tended to get bent. Rounded corners it is.
• And finally, I mispronounce Tomoe River Paper several times in the video.  Oops!