Hand-made art journal fun...

Hello everyone!!!
soooooo.... what have I been up to lately?
Mostly art journals, art journals, art journals...
Here is a mini art journal I made over the weekend (acutally I made 3 - 2 were gifts for friends and 1 for me)
The cover is made with fabric, ribbons, braid etc sewn onto a firm cardboard.
The pages are all different kinds of paper ie: scrapbook paper, sugar paper, pages from old dictionaries, pages from an old atlas etc etc.... The book is hand-bound (sewn at the spine with strong thread) and the "fluffies" on the spine are tied onto the binding stitches.

finished journal -cover

finished journal -pages

the 3 journals in progress

but that's not the end . . .  all the pages still have to be decorated and journalled on!
Here are some pages that I  have made a start on:

 machine sewn  heart.

 fabric heart sewed on with sewing machine , stamped background

 Favourite cartoon strip and a dictionary page decorated with word stickers

 atlas page (still to be decorated) and a page with a polka dot ribbon and large flower sticker (incomplete)

page with a pocket made from a tiny envelope plus a tag, an acetate butterfly and "love" sticker


This is another   art journal    that I made recently from scratch.  I used white cardboard for the pages - but folded some pages in , cut some pages shorter than others etc.  This one is also hand-bound the same as the others.The cover is covered with fabric which is then painted and stencilled onto with acrylic paint. It is decorated with a  stamped butterfly, lace,  vintage flowers and handmade beaded flowers. I added stickers and definitions that I cut out of an old dictionary.  It contains scraps of fabric on all the pages at the spine to reinforce it so that the pages wont tear out.

Some of  the inside pages that I have been working on:

 This page was hand painted by me - inspired by the Flora Bowley art book that I just bought - delicious book!!!

I painted this sweet lady straight onto the journal page -just love painting lady faces.

And then. . .

I have also been playing around with some DOODLING  - I love doodling (didnt know that it is an actual art-form until just recently -  how interesting!) I hand painted the backgrounds using fluid acrylic paints and a "credit card" technique - doodling done with a black Sharpie pen:

 

"Anything you're good at contributes to happiness."
-Bertrand Russell-