Monday, January 14, 2013

Handmade journal

I didn't make any art journal pages this week, instead I made my own journal!

Using directions from The Complete Decorated Journal and Cover to Cover, I bound some of my painted and prepared pages into a journal:



Now, the first thing I will say is that the author of The Complete Decorated Journal calls this style a "30 minute" book and that is CRAZY. I spent WAY more than 30 minutes on this binding! I guess she's made a lot of them and can whip them out in 30 minutes, but I sure can't!

The cover of my book is watercolor paper, decorated with water color crayons and glimmer mist, then spray with a fixative. The ends and spine are covered in washi tape.

Inside is a mix of vintage and new papers (most are painted or gesso'd), as well as some envelopes.


I used a variety of sizes of paper & envelopes, and definitely learned that that makes the binding really hard for me to sew. It was hard to clip everything firmly together when there are so many different sizes. As a beginner, I will definitely stick to same-size papers for now!!


This was a great way to use some of the pages that have been sitting around waiting for a purpose, as well as try out some paints and embellishments I have on hand.

I hope you like it! Thanks for looking!

-Susan

P.S. This is linked at Art Journal Every Day


5 comments:

  1. I like it and think you've done a great job. I bind all my envelopes from swapping into a book also. I just couldn't throw away all the postage and addresses from around the world.

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  2. Love them all - books are so fascinating!

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  3. Thank you all! I'll post some more pics after I use Corinne's idea on her blog to add some of my leftover scraps to the backgrounds.

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  4. This is so creative! I love your unique style.

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