Altered Art Journals with Reader's Digest Book Covers

This week I am assembling altered art journals made with vintage Reader's Digest book covers that I purchased from 58andGrace on Etsy. I adore the colorful patterns of these book covers! I am really excited about going vintage book hunting myself and see what interesting materials I can find to make journals with.

Other goodies I used to construct these journals:

• Weathered, vintage dictionary pages
• Vintage ledger paper
• Cardstock printed with images from a 1923 Sears and Roebuck catalog
• ivory coverstock paper
• binder rings (can be found in office supply stores)
• stamps
• envelopes
• decorative ribbon
• vintage lace seam binding 

You can find these two altered art journals in my Etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/LovelyFever

New Handmade Journals

I am so excited! I have just finished a trio of handmade journals, each one unique and full off decorative detail.

For my experiment in book arts, I decided to use binder rings. What I love about binder rings is that they can be embellished with pretty ribbons and new pages can easily be added.



For the covers, I collaged heavy cardstock with vintage ephemera, digitally altered photographs, scrapbook papers and stamping. I then went to Staples and had them laminate my artwork.



Each journal is divided into sections. I scanned vintage advertisements, magazine pages and sheet music and printed them on different colors of cardstock. I also embellished some card envelopes, to create little places to store mementos.



The journals each have 125 unlined manila pages to write or sketch on. Overall, I am pleased with the outcome and look forward to designing additional books. As an avid journalist myself, I know the creativity of the journal structure itself can inspire the writing process.