book artist | Julie Dawn Designs

January 16, 2024January 16, 2024

Three New Journals

Happy January! We are at the beginning of a new year and winter has arrived in Texas in full force. We have been below freezing for a couple of days now and had a light covering of snow yesterday. I abhor winter weather so I’m more than ready for a warm up. I hope everyone is keeping warm in their corner of the universe.

I’ve recently created three new journals for a February event at the Craft Guild of Dallas. Prior to this I was having quite the time even getting started on anything. I seemed to be stuck. I would think of things to make, but I just couldn’t find the energy to get started. Once I got the email about the show at the gallery, I decided it was time to get out of my creative rut. Without further ado, here are the three journals I came up with for the show.

The first one is called Shabby Pink Roses. It measures 8 1/2 inches high by 5 1/2 inches wide. It contains 2 signatures with 100 pages each, front and back, of hand deckled white paper and has a ribbon closure.

The second one is called Feline Serenade. It measures 8 1/2 inches high by 5 1/2 inches wide. It has two signatures with 100 pages each, front and back, of hand deckled white paper and has a ribbon closure.

Last but not least is Be Mine. It measures 8 1/2 inches high by 5 1/2 inches wide. I has two signatures with 100 pages each, front and back, of white hand deckled paper and has a ribbon closure.

Each of these journals has a pocket on the front cover that has a cute bookmark and a couple of other goodies as well. All three of these will be available for purchase for $42 each at the Gallery at the Guild throughout the month of February, starting February 4th. Here is a link to their website that should have further information as it gets closer to the opening date. http://www.thecraftguild.org

I also have to give a shout out to the Etsy shop that I purchased all of these beautiful digital images from that helped me create these journals in the first place. It is called PrintDigitalByJen and has the most amazing designs and they are also very affordable and print out beautifully. https://www.etsy.com/shop/PrintDigitalbyJen?ref=shop-header-name&listing_id=1523535685&from_page=listing&page=4#items

As always, thanks for reading. That’s it for now!

June 17, 2023

Unicorn Journal

I have been wanting to make a journal like this for quite some time. When this digital kit came available, I knew I had to buy it.

Here is a picture of some of the elements included in it and the signatures I made from the pages in the kit.

So far, I’ve sewn in the signature covers and started decorating the front and back covers, as well as the spine.

I was trying to decide between these two ideas for the front cover:

It was a difficult decision, but my daughter told me the one with more butterflies was better than the one with less, so that is the one I went with. Now I’m working on the back cover and then I will finish decorating the spine. After that, it’s time to add pockets and ephemera to the pages inside and then it will be complete.

September 2, 2020

Practicing New Techniques

As artists, we all have other artists we look up to, learn from and generally admire. One of my favorites is Liz Constable from Book Art Studios. Not only is she an incredibly talented book artist, she is a great teacher and very generous with her knowledge.

I have always wanted to take one of her Dyed and Gone to Heaven workshops, but unfortunately, I could never figure out how to make that work since she is in Auckland and I am in Texas. Up until now, she has only taught in-person workshops, but the pandemic changed all that.

I was able to take both her coptic binding class and her dyed and gone to heaven class via zoom. They were great, and thankfully recorded, because I had to refer back to them more than once. I had done coptic binding before, but this is a new method that took some practice on my part.

Here are some pictures of one of my favorite books I made, filled with scrumptious, hand dyed paper, using a process that I’m sworn to secrecy not to divulge. If you want to learn it, you can visit her website and sign up for her next online class!

View of Journal Spine with Coptic Stitch

July 16, 2018July 16, 2018

Faux Leather Travelers Journals With a Twist

I was fortunate enough to be gifted some very nice faux leather fabric samples a while back. At first I wasn’t sure what to do with them, until I came across a journal in a craft store that give me an idea of how to put them to use. This is one of the first ones I made.

I recently decided that it was time to make a few more. After sewing the covers together, I decided that I wanted to do something besides a plain cover, so I decided to create some vignettes on each one.

Here is how they turned out.

faux leather travelers journals — Faux Leather Travelers Journals

To say I love them is indeed an understatement!

May 27, 2018

Altered Book Cover

This is the start of the cover art for my next hand painted travelers journal made from an upcycled book.

I started with creating background layers created from magazine text and gel medium. After that layer, I repeated the process with colored images. Next came the paint and stenciled image.

altered book travelers journal — Cover in Progress

Once the outside cover is complete, it’s time to add signatures, pockets and envelopes.