I hope you have created a journal and are ready to start creating the page designs. I love tabs and created them with postcards glued to the pages with about 3/8 of an inch sticking out past the page edge. After that I glued little titles to the tabs on both sides. You can also trim them with rounded edges. I used the tabs to divide my trips, going to Riverside, back home, and up to Joshua Tree. However, the year isn't over so I have plenty of blank pages to add tabs to when I need more. Consider this a work in progress, rather than something that needs to be finished in sections as you move on.
On the right is an envelope glued onto the page to hold various bits of ephemera from my medical stuff (the reason for all the traveling this year, and the theme for the journal). On the left is the page with details and little stories filling out the theme. I created story cards from index cards and made pockets on the page by just glueing the sides and bottom of the piece of decorative paper that I added to the bottom. I also added a narrower pocket on top of that one and tore the top edge. I love measuring tape decorations. You can scan your own and print it to use on your pages.
You can also get out your markers and begin to color the page edges. I do this while sitting in front of the television in the evenings. I like to lay down a band and then work smaller elements into the band. I use squares of a darker color on top of the drawn band, and then little detail elements in the lighter squares, or little detail elements in the darker squares (use a white gel pen for this it is great). You can also use rubber stamps to decorate the borders, and then color them with the markers.
