Handmade Happiness - My Personal Experiences in Journals, Handmade Books, and Paper Crafts

If you can write a journal, you can write a novel!

Every November is National Novel Writing Month. Visit Nanowrimo.org to see what it's all about!

A handmade book is a piece of art in itself, but I thought, "Why not put art within the art too?"

I spent several hours the other day drawing with Sharpies on watercolor paper and then painting over it, and I made a book out of it while I was at it. I think it took about 3 hours to draw, paint, glue and put the book together.

I used handmade paper (once again, made by my sister) for the cover and used a black Sharpie to sign the front!

I can't decide whether to keep the book, or put it up for sale in my Etsy shop. What do you guys think? It's all original watercolor and Sharpie art by me. Well, I guess I can decide later!

This is a picture of my travel journal! I went to Arizona in May 2011 to visit my sister! It was so great. We only spent 3 days down there, but I practically filled the entire journal with stories and memorabilia.

Here's an excerpt:
"After the mall, we buzzed back to the hotel and changed for the graduation and we followed Lizzie from her house to the Cardinals (University of Pheonix) Stadium. Betty says that they roll their football field in and out of the stadium. It has wheels!"

I have post cards and receipts in my book, as well as photo booth pictures and plane tickets. I also have a tiny shopping bag from Sephora and a cute little doll from Thailand.

Bring a travel journal, or just a blank notebook on your next vacation. You may not have a lot of time to write, but the writing you end up doing on the vacation could be a big part of putting together a picture album for the family to look at in the future!

Click on the picture to view the listing for this book on etsy. :)

Sketch, Sketch, Sketch!

Blank journals are just as good for sketching as they are for writing. Draw with pen and ink, make collages, glue in pictures and use sharpies to draw on them... STICKERS. Ooooh, add some stickers and your sketchbook will be fabulous... I promise.

Click on the picture to view the listing for this book on etsy. :)

This particular book has shimmery pages! Who says you can't sketch on shimmery colored paper?

As you can see, I did not use stickers...

THAT is why this sketch cannot be called fabulous.

I drew this picture after seeing some illustrations that the shoe designer Manolo Blahnik drew in an article in Harper's Bazaar magazine. Here's the article that was my inspiration.

At the moment, I don't have any entirely leather bound journals in my shop, but this one is leather wrapped with a snap closure and everything. :)

Leather journals are much more durable than journals with paper covers.

Click on the picture to see the listing for this journal on Etsy.

Excerpt from my most recent journal entry:

"I'm trying to look at it as a blessing because it gives me some time to save money..."

Well, you could make a necklace, wear it as a charm on a bracelet, use it to write little love notes, practice your "tiny writing" skillz, draw little pictures, glue little pictures to the pages, write a friend a story and send it in the mail... It's cute and it's fun and I think you'll be able to think of something to do with it. :)

Click on the picture to see the actual etsy listing for this book. The flower on the front is hand drawn by me! :)

Write song lyrics in a handmade journal! Why not?

I don't write songs... can barely play the piano and haven't quite figured out how to put songs together... especially not songs with words.

If you write songs, a lyric journal is just the place for writing them! Take some time to find the right book. You need a fantastic one that puts you in the songwriting mood!

Click on the picture to see the actual listing for this book on Etsy.

I used to write poetry all the time... but recently I've been a little out of sorts. Poetry hasn't been my creation of choice. Book making has kind of taken over... soooo, I guess my books are my poetry! That's fun. :)

Click on the pic for the Etsy listing. :)

An excerpt from one of my stories (Feb 2010):

"As I write this essay, I stop to scribble out words, I make mistakes and fix them. I edit as I go. In life - in speech - this isn't really an option... Even when I plan what I'm going to say, my words come out jumbled..."

Whatever you want to write, wherever you want to write it, practice is the only thing that makes writing better... as far as I know.
Your imagination even improves with practice, so if you want to write an awesome story and you feel unimaginative, just practice! I think it's just the thing to help make your stories great!

I have a lot to work on and a lot to write if I ever want to publish a book. (And I do want to!)

I made myself a book to keep track of the things I eat.
I'm trying not to eat so many calories as I used to... So far, I've lost 45 lbs. I think it helps a lot to write things down! You can actually see what you're eating when you write it in a book.

Click on the image to see the Fabulous little book in my Etsy Shop.

I just started to make these stationery books. There's 6 pages inside, so you could spend a little time writing a journal of the fun time you're having on vacation... It's like a post card, only you put a lot more information in it!

Going to school? Going to a conference? Headed to church? You can take notes with a handmade book!

Last semester, I made myself an entire set of notebooks for school. It made taking notes a little more fun! :)

This is one of my duct tape covered books (I have two!). Click on the picture to see my etsy listing for this book.

Any kid can have a journal... Just go to Wal*mart, Rite Aid, Office Depot, Staples and buy a notebook that you child likes, and they can use it as their journal! (You could also use plain white copy paper and store each journal entry folded up in an old shoe box that the child has decorated...)

Old journals are fun memories to look back on... Oh, and something really important is to have your children write the date on their journal entries!

My first journal (I think I was 8 or 9 years old when I got it.) cost only a dollar. It was just a plain hardback, lined journal. The front cover was glossy and printed to look like the back pocket of a pair of jeans... and I think the pocket had stitched flowers on it. I thought it was pretty cool.

My mom had my sister and me do journal writing assignments every once in a while after we bought our journals. I loved it.
Here is one of my first journal entries (bad spelling and all!):

Elise 9 10/94/27 (94 and 27 are crossed out and reversed, making it 10/27/94)

"Tomorrow is going to be fun. mom is not going to let us dress up. Even though mom is'nt going to let us dressup it is going to be fun!

This is another fun thing if we get to go. Well any way if we get to go we are going to go to our friends house. There names are Nicole and Skyler and there mom and dads names are Annie and Skott."

The image here is of the notebook I made for myself to take notes at school this last semester. I used neon cardstock to separate out 3 different subjects for the notebook and I made folder pockets to hold all of my class papers.

How to make your own notebook (no sewing involved):

1. Back to school sales are the perfect place to buy cheap notebook paper, pick up a pack.

2. Find something to use as a cover for the book. You could even take the cardboard from a case of pop and cut a paper sized cover out of it... (To make the cover more sturdy, cut two pieces of the thin cardboard for each cover and glue them together.) If you want fancier paper than a pop case, how 'bout check out the paper at a craft store like Michael's or Joann's?

3. Find some 1.5" book rings. (I found mine for the notebook in the picture at Walmart. And I recently discovered the awesome colorful book rings at Office Depot for just $1.)

4. Use a hole punch and punch holes in the cover of the book. (To do this fairly accurately, just take one of the pieces of notebook paper and put it on top of the cover and punch the holes into the cover through the holes in the paper.)

5. Bind it all together using the book rings! Just put one ring into each of the 3 holes in your notebook and clamp them together and you've got a totally awesome notebook that you made all by yourself. :)

250 Journaling Prompts
JournalingPrompts.com
A Cornucopia of Prompts
Daydreaming on Paper Click the button that says "Inspire Me"
One Word

I wrote out a whole BUNCH of things that I wanted to write a small essay about... Well, I want to write one essay about each topic, if that makes sense... maybe it made sense when I first said it, but I wanted to clarify. :)
I called the book I wrote them in "What I Know (And What I Don't)". If you want to write about them too, here's the list.

Family
Friends
Love
Life
Kids
Pregnancy
Abortion
Cousins
Long-distance Relationships
Colors
Teenagers
Sleep
Sharpies
Writing
Phones
TV
Movies
Feet
Pets
Cats
Closets
Clothes
Pop (or "soda")
Summer
Water
Computers
Board Games
Hair
Purses
Clocks
Time
Radio
Music
Color vs. Black and White (Photographs, Movies,... etc.)
Drawing
Artists
Nail Polish
Makeup
God
Jesus
The Bible
Angels
Names
Words
English
Fire
Smoke
Smoking
Sayings (or "quotes")
Spring
Sisters
Brothers
Disney
IQ's
Letters
Artificial Intelligence
Letters (Either the alphabet or correspondence-type letters between friends)
Steam
Mirrors
Showers
Baths
Skin
Toes
Smiles
Eyes
Hugs
Weddings
Funerals
Anniversaries
College or University
Sports
Jewelry
Pain
Breathing
Pillows
Winter
Autumn
Authors
Teachers
The 12 Disciples of Jesus
Drawers
Teddy Bears
Photographs
Memories
Singing
Wood
Beads
Bottles
Butterflies
Boys/Men
Girls/Women
Doors
Treasure
Pirates vs. Ninjas
Hamburgers vs. Hotdogs
Laughter
Shooting Stars
Stars
Rain
Country Songs
Fog
Love Songs
Squirrels
Chairs
Jackets
Parents
Nature
Flowers
Trees
Clouds
Walks
Bikes
Cars
Automatic vs. Manual
Pens vs. Pencils
Boys vs. Girls
Lamps
Frogs
Crickets
Cement
Dirt
Heaven
Hell
Christianity
Beauty
Piano
Socks
Heat Blankets
Fleece
Jeans
Sparkles (Glitter)
Snow
Plaid
Hearts
Stairs
Frisbees
Journals
Books
Google
Blogging
Websites
HTML
Internet
Windows (on a computer)
Windows (you look out of)
Air
Hope
Peace
Unity
Fish
Fruit
Dreams
Space
Fake
Freckles
Dimples
Freedom
Leftovers
Coffee
Deodorant
Perfume
Marriage
The Sky
Hospitals
Steroids
Doctors
Teeth
Fear

Wow... That's a really long list of stuff and a lot of it could really be put together into a group for just a slightly longer essay on the same sort of topic. But anyway, that's my list of stuff! I'll give you some links to a few websites with more topics a little farther down on this lens. =)