Dollar Store Journal Makeover

I told you last time I was here that I would share with you what's in my travel art kit. I didn't get that blog written, but it's on my list, so I'll share that soon. 

In the meantime, I want to show you this quick and fun little project--a dollar store journal makeover.

You'll need:

• A spiral bound journal from the dollar store.
• A bunch of mod podge
• Assortment of vintage and pretty papers
• Paint, pencils, gesso, any mixture of media you like
• A brayer is good to have but not essential

Here's how it started, already cute and with a nice message.  But, I wanted to personalize it, so it needed a makeover.

First, remove the covers from the spiral so that it'll be easier to work with and you won't mess up the paper with all that glue you'll be flinging around. I also roughed them up a little bit with sandpaper because I wasn't sure yet what I was going to do next.

I decided to cover them with vintage magazine pages first.  Although you don't need a brayer, it makes the process of flattening the papers a lot easier.  Bubbles in your papers are so annoying.  Try to avoid those by centering the paper over the mod podged surface. Then use the brayer to press the paper to the glue from the center and push toward the edges. If you try to seal the edges first, you'll almost always end up with bubbles, which are messy to fix.

You should end up with two vintagey covers!

It might be easier to finish out the inside of the covers now before you work on the front.  I'm always a little afraid a mistake or spill or messiness will ruin the covers while I'm finishing the insides.  You'll just want to try to pick a coordinating pretty paper. Like this.

Now it's time to decorate them up.  I missed the in progress shots from this point. But I added thinned gesso to lighten up the color of the old papers some.  I wanted to obscure the words but allow the lettering to show through.  Then I used my favorite Caran d'Ache NeoArt water soluble wax pastels to add color to the background.  I then transferred one of my favorite sketches using tracing paper and pencil transfer.  I tried to paint the image coordinating colors to the edge of the original covers that still shows under the spiral. I didn't cover the holes. Since I don't have a spiral hole puncher, I thought it would be cleaner to leave them.

 When the front is all done, dried, and sprayed with a little Workable Fixatif to protect the image, reattach the covers to the spiral, taking care to avoid scratching the paint!

This one was a gift.  The sweet lady's favorite Bible verse is Psalms 62:8, "Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah." 

The old Bible I tore the verse from had the serendipitous heading at the top of the page-"Divine Wings".  

Some things are just meant to be.

If you decide to remake a Dollar Store journal, I would love to see what you create! 

<3 Lori 

P.S.-I restarted my Reboot.  Of course, I had a sugary blow out in the last couple of days that included lots of rice, a giant piece of Key Lime pie, and lots of chocolate and Diet Coke.  Today has gone very well.  I ate kale!  And I made my first batch of green juice.  It didn't make me gag.  And the acorn squash was quite yummy.  I cooked real food with my own hands.  Big day. Very big day.

Reboot Day 1

Because I might be too weak from starving to death and have difficulty remaining upright from no sugar or caffiene by October 1, I thought I would use my waning lucid moments to document how these first few days have gone and then share the post after the official start of the Blogtoberfest challenge.

So this "All Juice All The Time" thing is call Reboot. Here's a link--http://www.rebootwithjoe.com/rebooting/.  Basically, the premise is to get lots and lots of nutrients through the micronutrients in fruits and vegetables, which you can do a lot more easily drinking it than trying to eat all that. The objective is to clean out your system from all the junk you might have been hoarking and change your taste buds so that you will be less inclined towards the junk and more inclined towards the fruits and vegetables--mostly vegetables, which are really not my favorites.  I love bread and potatoes and pasta and rice and SUGAR.

Day 1, Thursday, Sept. 26-- I'm not starting my Reboot officially today, but all the information says that one should begin to taper off one's indiscretions in the days or weeks (or in some cases months) before one starts a juice fast.  So I'm trying it. I ordered this juicer last night on Amazon with the 30 day trial of Amazon Prime, so it should be here tomorrow.  I also hoarked down the last of my Sour Patch Kids last night so that they wouldn't be tempting me with their sour and sugary sassiness.  That was good thinking.

6:11--The later in the day it gets, the worse this juicing idea seems. What seems like a good idea now is a hot brownie and some ice cream. But that's how I got into this mess, isn't it?  I did pretty well this morning.  I wasn't going to make coffee at all, but I wasn't confident I'd be able to find the shower without it, and that's not good for anyone, so I had one mug.  Tomorrow I'll try for less.  For breakfast, I almost always have an Egg White Delight from McDonald's if I'm in town or peanut butter and jelly toast, if I'm working at home.  Today I had a store bought green juice and some hot lemon water.  Yum-Yum!

Surprisingly, I made it to lunch without any emergency medical intervention.  I was emboldened because all my coworkers were there with me, so I got a salad.  It wasn't the vegetable only salad I had sort of planned on, but there was green stuff and it was tasty. Starvation will do that to you.  A berry juice stood in for my afternoon candy bar.  Since I was racing back and forth to the bathroom because of all the juice and water I was consuming today, I was busy enough not to succumb to other temptations.  Not so on the way home.  Ready to pass out, I went through the drive thru at Chic-Fil-A, but no steaming, hot, yummy, salty waffle fries for me.  Who got the fruit cup instead?  This girl. Yum.

6:33--It's going to be a long wait until bed time.

7:30--So....yeah.

UPDATE:  I didn't make it past Day 2, just so you don't get your hopes up.  But I already wrote this, so I might as well share it.  You can get an idea of what a challenge this will be.  I actually have to be out of town tomorrow through Friday for a work thing. Juicing on the go is not that good of an idea for me I'm pretty sure.  So I'm back to doing the taper-off activities this week.   I'll be starting the official full on Reboot on Saturday.  For now, here's a little poem I just wrote about a new juice I tried today.

Ode to Carrot Juice

I do not like this juice.

I don't.

I will not drink it.

No, I won't.

This juice does not

Taste very good.

I would rather 

Chew on wood

To get the nutrients

I need

Than drink this juice

That tastes like weeds.

The End

Happy Blogtoberfest, everyone.  If you liked this post, boy, are you in for a treat!!!  I'm going to try to post every.single.day. in October!!!  Stand by for more poetic brilliance. :)

<3 Lori