Sunday, December 22, 2013

A Very Bookist Christmas

At a craft show, there was a guy selling exquisite leather journals. Loved them, except for the price. So why not just make my own version of these for much less. At yard sales and Goodwill places, I bought old leather coats and disassembled them. Then found a variety of inexpensive journals to speed up the process and started attaching and arranging.



Some of the first ones turned out just okay. 
They came to life when incorporating parts of the coat buckles, buttons, sleeves and pockets.
 
Brown leather with a cuff.

Orange leather with a belt loop.

A shoulder strap holds a marker.

A hanging tassel adds a little drama.
 
At first I didn't like the pocketed tan one, but now I've been using it for everything from daily notes, errand lists, ATCs, collecting ephemera to saved ideas.
 
Today I gathered a bunch up and shoved them in a Steampunk Trunk and passed them around to the church staff. I'm not sure if this is too funky of a thing to be passing around to church folks, but what the heck, they can put down music, ideas, addresses, prayer requests, all kinds of stuff. Wouldn't a humble imperfect journal be just about right for this work?
 
They are called the Imperfect Perfect Journal.
The idea is that they are already flawed, so you won't feel nervous about using it. You know how some journals are just too beautiful or expensive to ever mark in and mess up. Since these are already imperfect, here's hoping that everyone who got one will fill its pages.
 
In this Technological Age this could be a Lost Art, but I'm lost in it.
 
So what else can you do with them?
Well, if your an artist, you can draw and paint, of course.
 
Being relieved after the trauma of my missing cat being found, I painted this by accident. I'd put in the brown to offset the brown leather on the inside cover and the gray part looked so much like the hole the cat dug for herself that I decoupage her inside it. It makes me giggle now to look at it.

Then, there's the fantasy journals. Who doesn't want to be Queen Elizabeth and marry Doctor Who?
I made a copy of the Tardis and decoupaged it, then painted.


So what do you think? Do you want one? If you write me, I just might send one to you.
Merry Christmas
Naieva