Making a journal from recycled papers and covers

First, another bird photo from Linear Park, Adelaide - an Eastern Rosella.

Just a thought - birds are inspiration - birds keep moving - keep the inspiration moving by watching birds - I used to go roller skating like Cherry the Chook but now I go for walks along by the river and get my inspiration from all the birds there.  Such beauty in everyday sights.

Cherry the Chook on roller skates - Cherry is my personal phoenix, a chook that I draw in many different poses.

This is the front page/endpaper of a journal I have just made.  This one I decided to make entirely from recycled things.  I bought a hardcover children's book in the charity shop and removed the text block to use later.  The cover is in good condition.  For the paper inside, I took from my recycle box old A4 notebook pages with notes I no longer need, and A4 paper with stuff I had printed from the computer but that I had now updated and again, no longer needed.  I can't throw away paper only printed on one side anymore.  The notepad paper was a bit thin but by the time I had painted it all with acrylic paints that I had leftover from last year's Fabric Painting class, that thickened it up a bit.  Some sides I left unpainted for variety.  I used lots of different colours and let them mix, and let them pick up paint that had transferred to my plastic sheet.  I used rollers for all of it.  The effects were great, and I will post more pix on my website when I update the Book Arts Page - currently working on that and hope to have it up and running by the end of October.  I still made it using Flat Back instructions (for strength) from Keith Smith, my favourite book artist, in his book "Bookbinding for Book Artists".  I have used this book so much since I bought it, it is very detailed and not just instructions in it but also photos of artist books.  Worth every cent of $35 U.S.

I will have more pix on my Book Arts Page once it is updated, hopefully by the end of October.

Book Binding

I have been busy learning various book binding techniques lately.  Here is one of them - a French Link stitch.  I used crochet cotton, and the signatures were of gift wrapping paper - no cover.

After working through some magazines and books with information, I ordered some books on books, book art and book binding from http://www.keithsmithbooks.com/ and they were delivered - New York to Adelaide - in just 8 days, and the prices are not excessive for these extremely useful and inspiring books, which are FULL of detailed information.  I thoroughly recommend them.

Preserving leaves

For my Nature Journal I have been preserving leaves in glycerine.  You dilute one part glycerine to 4 parts water, and stand the stem in it for about two weeks.  I have found this is quite successful for gum leaves, and you can soak the whole leaf instead if it has no stem; however the leaf has to be fully green or it doesn't work.  Not all leaves take to it - geranium leaves just wilt and die within a few hours.  I have used some gum leaves, attached to a machine-made cord and a tassel made of silk thread, as a decoration to my Nature Journal.

The journal cover is a fabric collage which I machine embroidered, then made in the normal way into a cover for the A4 sketchbook I am using.  I also added a machine-made cord as a bookmark for inside, attached to the top of the spiral binding like the decorative elements. 

If you have been experimenting with papers and/or fabrics, try using your results as a book cover.