Too good to waste....

It's July already..where has the last few months gone..I don't know if it's because I am older that time is flying by. The weather is ridiculously hot at the moment, I am spending more time indoors with all the fans going, but the time at home has given me an excuse the sift through a lot of my craft stuff.
I was given some albums some years ago..I was loathe to throw them away, so I stripped them back to the original covers and decided to make a couple of small journals for my design team project at Rhedd's Creative Spirit.for their July challenge.

I decided to make 4 journals  from the 4 boards so I measured them so 2 would be slightly larger than the other. 

I took one of each size and rounded the corners and the other 2 I set aside to alter at a later date.
I gave them a good sanding with some fine sandpaper to remove any glue residue.
I then gave them 2 coats of gesso.

For both of the journals I added some texture through a stencil to the front cover and left it to dry overnight.

 I painted both sides of the front and back covers using green,blue and yellow acrylic paints..then highlighted some areas in gold gilding wax for the shell journal and then I used brown,black and orange for the steampunk style journal, highlighting areas with gunmetal gilding wax.

For this journal, I adhered some orange mesh, muslin and shells to the top cover and finished decorating it with some pearls from an old necklace that was given to me some years ago, well I was never going to wear it,lol.

The pages in the journal are from scraps from around my craft room..some pages have pockets etc..sorry I forgot to photograph the inside.

The Steampunky journal is a great size..more for a man I feel. I decorated the cover with cogs and chicken wire that are from Fernli Designs...after painting them I added rust effect to areas to age it some more.
Again, the pages are from scraps in my craft room..

The Seaside journal measures 14cms x 8cms

The Steampunky one measures 14cms x 6cms

The covers are really sturdy as the board is really thick.

If you have any old board books and you no longer need them, why not recycle them and come along to Rhedds and enter our challenge...

You can find our July Challenge here at 

Rhedd's Creative Spirit