Thursday, September 22, 2011

Drooling over Twilight and Dollar Tree

My heart went pitter patter when I saw this tin of Twilight journal in the Dollar Tree...
FOUR hard bound journals for a DOLLAR plus a free tin to boot?!!!
Whose heart rate wouldn't speed up a bit!

Granted, they have cheesy, romantic, teenage quotes by Bella, the paper is a bit thin, the cover is just plain odd, and there are some strange pictures inside. 

We can fix that.

First, glue every 2-3 pages together with some artists medium, mod podge, or even Elmers. 
(Sorry--no pics on this, but glue drying isn't that interesting anyway.)

Now your pages are thicker and can handle some artistic abuse creation. 

To cover up the the wildly introspective Bella quotes, prep your surface for paint and other mediums, and give it even more hardiness, splurb on some gesso and coat the pages with a brush.

A sheet of waxed paper will help protect the other pages and keep them from sticking together.
The pages will curl a bit, but they flatten out as they dry.

Gesso is just like paint primer--some of the writing will still show through a bit, but just one coat of color will work to cover completely.

Lastly, decorate the ghastly cover to your delight.
Mod podge and decorative papers or fabric work great for this. 
My Twilight Camping Journal

I redid the cover by mod podging an old map to the front and back.  The spine was made with a scrap piece of leather and mod podge.  The deco on the cover is made from our camp recycle bag. 
 A Pyramid Ale box makes for a great medallion :)

It's rustic, but that the idea for this journal as I do it in camp.  Bringing mod podge camping is one thing--a set of acrylic paints is completely unrealistic!

Ok, the inside cover still needs work, but I just HAD to show off this library card I found in my dad's driveway (Sorry, dad--finders keepers).

"Paradise Lost"--"discontinued"!  Is that perfect, or what!
I'm stamping our camping dates for record keeping.

Here's some finished pages...
I didn't gesso the pages in this journal.  I do it while camping using just basic supplies, so either cover up the silly quotes, read them to the family and get a good laugh, or draw on them.

I have an old Betty Crocker Campground Cooking book that I use for embellishment too. It's also got some recipes that we use. "Darn Goods" (recipe in pic above) are REALLY yummy!

The first campground we stayed at was a KOA and they have plenty of printed material that you can trim to your decorating needs.  We also went to a nearby town that day and I collected cards to journal with.

The last day we were there a tragic accident occurred, so the page itself isn't very journaled.
I taped a glassine envelope to the page and stuffed a page full of my private thoughts from that day in it.  Envelopes are a great way to publicly journal private info.
Page from our 2nd trip.
We were dry camping this time so I had Addie get creative and make leaf rubbings to add.

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