How To Doll Up a Notebook

ANNOUNCEMENT! Ledger & Lace is on Teachable.com

This has been a labor of LOVE, combining my passion for Traveler's Notebooks and teaching.
Here's a video explaining the two courses I have in the Ledger And Lace Teachable online classroom:

Here's a link to the classroom: https://ledgerandlace.teachable.com/

Hummingbird Journal for Anne

Sean's Journal

Sean is a family friend for decades. He recently celebrated his 50th birthday, and my brother and I came up with a journal together.  I wrapped it in some wallpaper:

 Here's the book that I painted and then went over with gold. Those are Tim Holtz book corners, along with a Tim Holtz hitch post and a hair band for the closure:

Tim Holtz safety pin thingie with an "S" for Sean, as well as a little vintagey looking key:

Down below I put an "11" because there were no "50" numbers in the Tim Holtz collection:

Inside, pocket on left holds the birthday card, first insert on right:

Inside of card; pix taken at Sean's b-day party which was costumey. Friend Chris on the left didn't dress all LOR, so I added a crown & a medallion:

I think this is my favourite page. This insert opens up to the center. The original photo is of Sean juggling, and I added a chainsaw--and then of course, had to add a little NDT! (Neil DeGrasse Tyson).

I added some digital "stamping" of Star Trek thingies:

Here's a Lord of The Rings page:

Inside of Star Trek themed insert:

This is the meme that started it all! Atlasta sent it to me and said he wanted to make sure it was in the journal. So I did a lot of Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.

The book is an old encyclopedia with cool, retro paper:

And here's a flip-thru:

My First Booksmith Tome: Verna's Journal

One day last April, I made an unplanned trip to the recycling center. It's on the way to the post office, so I thought I'd swing by even tho I didn't have all that much stuff to drop off. This part of the story is important because if I had gone another time, I would have missed everything!

I chucked the paper in the paper bin and as I was walking toward the container bin, I noticed PAPER in there. In my judgey-ness, I thought, "How hard is it to sort things into the proper bin?!"  As I got closer, I realized that it wasn't just paper, it was cards: birthday, holidays, and just because. Mixed in with the coffee grounds and a wad of gum, was a family photo album and calendar made with family photos, and a beautiful (empty) silver picture frame. They were all addressed to "Verna," and were from 2013 to the present.

They were obviously special to Verna and I thought, "Who would just throw away someone's memorabilia?"  So I pulled everything out and put it in a box and took it home. As I sifted thru everything, I could tell that this was a woman who was well-loved. There were photos of her laughing and one in particular, where she was holding up a huge jar of peanut butter.

The great thing was that I had addresses of Verna's friends and family. The one person who sent the most cards was her daughter Peggy, who lives out of state. So I did a little Facebook detective work and found her. I sent her a message and told her that I found her mother's mementos, and gave her my phone number.

A few days later, she called me. It turns out that her mother had just passed away. My heart just hurt for her. I said something like, "I know what it's like to lose your mother when you love her. There is no pain like it. I'm a little further along than you, but it is the hardest thing."  So we had a lovely talk and I was able to send her a package for Mother's Day, the first without Verna.

I sent Peggy the photos, but I kept the cards and told her I wanted to make a junk journal with them, if that was OK with her. She said her mother's service wouldn't be for a few months, so I had time before she would be back in Virginia.

Well, I finally met Peggy this week!  We met at the Silver Diner and I gave her Part One of the journal. There were so many cards that if I had put everything together, the journal would have had a 6-inch spine!  So for the first bit, I gave her all the cards from Verna's friends.  I had gotten this Weight-Watcher's binder in Verna's favourite colour and did a fabric-paper collage on the front to hide the logo.

It also has a pocket. See the card?

Here's the inside:

As Peggy went thru some of the cards, she updated me and told me that a few had passed away since Verna had died.  I felt like I got to know not just Verna, but her friends, as well. One of her friends, Dixie, had sent the most cards besides Peggy. She was one of the ones who passed away. "Oh, not Dixie," I said. So I never met her, but I feel like I did from all the sweet things she wrote to Verna.

PART TWO:
 I didn't actually plan to have 2 parts, but I'm so glad I did!  I created a journal for her with the rest of cards from her, and more photos of Verna. I drilled holes into the cover, so that I could attach the picture frame, and kept them plugged up with little picture-hanging nails while I painted it.

This is the only photo I took, but I managed to grab some screenshots from the video!

Front:

The famous curved spine of Nik The Booksmith:

Back:

I made this as a travelers notebook with a hidden spine. First insert, inside:

The first insert has a pocket and I used one of Mum's buttons as the fastener for the ribbon. I made
 this with the intention of using as a guest book at Verna's memorial service if Peggy needed one. 

 Inside the first insert:

What a cool lady Verna is!  

The quote on the first page is from the Baptist Hymnal:

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you 

richly in all wisdom; teaching and

admonishing one another in psalms and 

hymns and spiritual songs, singing 

with the grace in your hearts to the Lord."

~Colossians 3:16

When I first decided to make a journal for Peggy, I had no idea how I was going to do it. But then Nik The Booksmith's course came out, and I was able to create something heirloom-worthy!  

Here's the flip thru:

I did the flip-thru right before I went to meet Peggy and her two grandkids. It was so great going thru it with her as she told me more stories about Verna and Verna's friends. Her 5 YO ("almost 6!") grandson actually read the Dick and Jane pages. Such a smart boy!  And both kids had a very enthusiastic response to all the pictures of cakes and candies!  

I am SO GRATEFUL that I went to the recycling bin on the "wrong" day and that Verna's things were in the "wrong" bin. Had I gone on another day or had they been put in the "right" bin, I would not have found them and would never have met Peggy or been able to salvage Verna's memories.  Peggy is one of the sweetest, kindest people you could ever want to meet and I happy to have her as my friend.  :-)

Even tho I never met Verna, I feel like I know her. She was the same age as Mum, and had the same sort of active life that Mum had, including having volunteer work.  I could tell from all the cards from her friends, that she was well-loved and cherished by so many. And now, you can get to know her, too.

Ophelia's Birthday Journal

I made this journal for my dear friend Ophelia for her 50th birthday:

The band-aid on my finger is covering a blister from all the painting I did at my brother's house. Also, another title for this video could be: Here's Another Picture You Can't See.  ;-)

Mother Mary TN

I got a really sweet, 5-year journal that had awful paper; I even left a review.  No "Before" pictures, (I know!  Bad blogger!) so click on the link to see what it looked like before I gutted it. And here's the "After" :

I googled different photos & chose this for the cover.

This is for my friend Christen.

The book was that pretty teal blue, but I used a metallic gold around the edges. Kinda went a little crazy with it, here's the back of book:

Spine with a little heart charm:

Pocket on inside cover of Mother Mary, laminated. I did 5 inserts; the first with another Mother Mary image:

And then the next 4 inserts were each of the archangels:

Back of AA Michael & front of AA Raphael:

Back pocket is AA Raphael with some extra pictures:

These were extras that I had laminated. It was hard choosing which pictures to use for this project. There is so much beautiful art work through the centuries!

I didn't want to post this until after I'd given it to Christen, and then I forgot until I remembered. 

You can turn any book into a travelers notebook. So if you like a cover, but not the contents, give it a go!

Moleskine Photo Book

John Morgan got me a Moleskine Snoopy journal for my birthday. He's a fan of Moleskine, and up until I received my journal, I'd been calling them MoleSKIN journals. I thought I'd return the favor of giving him his own Snoopy Moleskine, but then I saw a Pinterest post about Moleskine photo journals.   Moleskine has a whole bunch of choices for photo journals, but I got the one that was comparable in size to mine, 5" X 8" and it has 96 pages.

The design process was fairly easy with just a few layout choices. There was no option to have 3, 4 or 8 photos on the same page. Also, no option to customize how many photos you wanted or to do a collage or to customize the size of your photos. I didn't do much writing, mostly photos. But there didn't seem to be many font options, either. I did like that you could design a photo to take up the whole page. There was an option to have a page full of dots for writing, but not lines.  Personally, I'm not a lines kinda gal, but my Snoopy Moleskine has lines, as do other Moleskines. It just seems odd that it wouldn't be an option when it's such a standard choice in Moleskines. Other than that, it was easy to do the layout. Also, unlike other books I've done, the paper wasn't glossy, so it's much more conducive to writing.

I've created photo books on Blurb and with Picaboo (my favourite).  With Picaboo, when you order, the cover of your book shows up. Easy-peasy; there's no doubt what you're ordering. When I ordered the Moleskine, just the blank book showed up. "That can't be right," I thought. I tried again. Again, a blank book popped up. I kept trying, each time getting more panicky. So I emailed an S.O.S. to customer service and got a very quick reply back.

The book icons you see in your BASKET are intentionally blank on the covers.
This is the default icon; it doesn't reflect what's on the cover of the books you're purchasing.

Why?  WHY would you do this?!!!  And if you're going to do this, why wouldn't you say something to let people know?  Surely I can't be the only person to find this confusing? In between designing the book and ordering the book, I spent a frantic, spazzy hour and a half trying to get it sorted.  It was coming from New Zealand, so I needed to get it ordered to get it on time. Other than that, I have to say that my experience was good. And next time I'll know. Also, they said it would arrive by April 6th. It arrived March 16th! Here are a few pix of the inside:

The quality of the book is exceptional. The photos looks awesome and the paper is  thick and will be easy to write on. The rounded corners add a finished quality. I would absolutely make another one of these!  This is an awesome gift for someone who writes. You could even just do a straight photo book. So, minus my spazzy-panicking, the final product was totally worth it!