Hand Made Travel Journal!

There is nothing better than handmade, right? That's exactly what I think. And so my best friend just graduated from high school I found it only appropriate to craft her something amazing as a graduation gift. I knew she was on the road to traveling the whole world and thought she would need something to write in. And so now I present the ultimately and completely handmade travel journal!

The design for the journal came from this website. The journal is made from folded typing paper, water colored paper, cardboard, an overly labored over weathered map and some handmade country maps!

To prepare the cover paper I figured the map must look weathered, right? Right, so after some coffee soaking, I tried to lift the wet map out of the baking sheet and like a little kid with a fragile object the beautifully weathered map fell apart along the folded edges! Fortunately after some hair-drying and taping it was almost as good as new. I also finished it off with some gold watercolor for a rich look.

The cool flag and earth charms were made out of fused bubble wrap and melted crayon. The bookmark tassel is simply an old chain from a broken necklace with ribbon weaved in and out of it.

And now this leads me to the inside of the journal. I put a nice pocket for loose papers in the back of the journal and decorated it!

The front page of the journal I also decorated and personalized for my friend. P.S. she makes amazing cupcakes!

She really did love the journal and frankly I really enjoyed making a journal completely by hand! From this moment on I'll never buy a journal from the store again!

Thanks for looking!

Steampunk'n Matchbox

A little while ago I participated in a swap on craftster.org. We were supposed to craft matchboxes into master pieces of our partners interest. Before I did this swap I didn't really know what "steampunk" was. It was really cool to create art that was outside of my comfort level. Here is the link to the Steampunk'd out Matchbox. I reused a broken zipper and wrapped it around the box to create a punk-ish feel.

I also crafted the key pendant hanging on the front.

Here is the box open. I thought it would be cool to make the box like an envelope.

Some more details.

Thanks for looking!