Hand Colored Art Nouveau Journals

I created these easy and useful Journals as a gift for my sweet Sister in Law's upcoming birthday.

These are very fun and easy to make.

If you would like to create your own journals, these are the supplies you will need:

Blank Journals

Matte Photo Paper

Graphic Art to Copy

Ribbon for Book Markers and Decoration

Glue Stick

Colored Pencils

All of my art came from this Art Nouveau Treasury published by:

www.doverpublications.com

It is copy-right free.

But you can use any type of image you like. I chose black and white images so I could hand color them.

And because I could only find black and white blank journals! (I do live in the middle of no-where)

Simply make a Copy of the Art you have selected and print it out on Matte Photo Paper. It is very important to use the Matte Photo Paper, as it is sturdy enough to hold up to glue and can be colored.

I chose rather large images so I could cover up the front of the journal, which was less than pretty. If your image isn't that large, simply cut the photo paper to cover the journal, leaving some white space.

I hand colored the images with the colored pencils. This gave a soft pastel quality to the images that I really liked.

I used yellow, green, and blue

It was fun! Remember getting that new box of crayons and new coloring book when you were little? Yea, it was like that!

Once the image was colored, I used a glue stick to adhere it to the front of the journal.

I also printed and colored an image for the inside cover.

This covered up the unattractive 'schedule' and created a beautiful cover page.

Next, I cut a long ribbon for a page marker. Make this a little longer than twice the length of the journal. Glue this to the inside cover starting at the bottom. This can be looped down to 'mark the page'.

This journal is an example of having an image that wasn't quite large enough, so the image was centered and the photo paper was cut to fit the cover. I added a thin polka dot ribbon to the edge of the binding.

An easy way to glue thin ribbon is to just pull it over the top of the glue stick!  

I hope this inspires you to create your own journals. They are easy, fun and make wonderful gifts, for yourself, or someone  you love!