LifeBook Week25: Recycled Reflections

I absolutely adored this week's bonus LifeBook lesson by Rae Missigman. She showed us how to create a journal from a recycled photo envelope - you know the ones you get from the printers with your photos in it. I have quite a few of those lying around and it never occurred to me to reuse them this way. Mine is a slightly different format, but it worked just fine for this project.

I added two layers of gesso, and after all the stencilling and layering I ended up with quite a sturdy cover for my journal and it even has a pocket! I used gelli prints for my pages and rounded off the corners. I was happy to get out my sewing machine to reinforce the seams and sew in my signature of gelli prints. It was done in a jiffy! The blank sides of the prints will be great to record my random thoughts and reflections, while the printed side lends itself to visual play. It is a bit wonky and scruffy, but that's part of the beauty of it! I will make some more of these later as they are so quick and easy to make!

Happy arting! :)