Hi all! I know I've not been posting for a while, but honestly - I didn't have much to share. But this is a quick, easy project that I thought might be of some interest.
I've done journal transformations before, but for this book I wanted to do something quick and super easy. My mom found this unused notebook/journal (above) at a book sale and asked if I wanted it. I didn't love the cover, but the book was in good shape and seemed like an empty canvas. I decided to do a simple acrylic paint design of transform the cover (Unfortunately, I picked a rainy day to do it. So my photos are a little dark).
1. The first thing I did was put a piece of wax paper between the front cover and the pages of the notebook. This would keep the pages clean if I spilt any paint.
2. Next, I used a broad brush to paint the front cover a light blue that was similar to the actual cover. I used acrylic paint for this.
3. Once my paint was dried, I divided the cover into 9 equal squares. My cover is not exactly square, so each box is slightly rectangular, but I didn't care.
4. Then I painted the interior of each square with a light cream color.
5. When my cream paint was dry, I used a thin brush and a dark blue-purple paint color to sketch a circle into each box. These circles were not perfect and each was slightly different.
6. Next, I switched to a slightly wider brush and added more color to each circle. I built up the color using purple, green, and blue with loose brush strokes to create a different painterly circle in each box. I worked quickly so in some places, my colors were able to blend together before the paint dried.
7. Then I started to add some lighter, brighter colors to each circle.
8. When I was happy with the overall look of my circles, I let my paint dry completely.
9. As a last step, I added a few sweeps of metallic gold paint to each circle. The metallic gold is hard to photograph but I like how it lightens up my design.
I'm excited to fill my new journal with some new project ideas!
