Mom's Handmade Creative and Inspiring Art Journal Picture Book

My mom dabbles in a variety of different artsy-fartsy endeavors, from quilting and sewing to jewelry-making and art journaling.  She is extremely creative and very technical in her approach.  She is quite the perfectionist and her work is exquisite. 

At our family reunion we have an auction to help pay for the next reunion, works out great.  Lots of "junk" shows up for the auction but we also have lots of crafty people who bring great work to sale.  A few years ago mom made one of her books (yep, I made fun of her extensively for her new hobby, as if she needs another one, that's my job) and ended up buying the book.

Thrift stores are great places to find books with amazing covers to use in art projects.  For a quick reminder of what to look for, where you might find cool paper products and how you could use them to uniquely decorate your home, click here: Decorating Your Home With Paper for a free subscription to my Cheat Sheet Postcard series.

Mom takes the decorative cover of a book, removes the pages (or uses them, altered in some way), makes her own pages and then binds it all together into a new, decorative art book of some sort.  This particular year she asked family to donate pictures and made multiple projects to sale.  I came home with the best one.  I love my little book.  Here's a look at some of her amazing work.

 The pages are full of family photos, some from recent years and others I don't recognize.  I had to have mom make me a cheat sheet.  She did a great job representing the family in the book.

 My brother and I are in some of these pictures as well as cousins that I grew up with.  One of my favorite pages (because I know who the people are).

 The bottom right picture is my husband and I when we got married. 

This little book has a permanent home on a shelf in the living room and I'm always looking for books with beautiful covers for mom (as if she really needs more, but as you know, any true crafter can never have enough, right!)

I am always looking for books with decorative covers or pictures I could use in artwork and such.  For a quick reminder of what to look for, where you might find cool paper products and how you could use them to uniquely decorate your home, click here: Decorating Your Home With Paper for a free subscription to my Cheat Sheet Postcard series.

Have you made any interesting things from books or book pages, I'd sure love to see your handi-work?  Feel free to share.