Customer Reviews

The Decorated Page: Journals, Scrapbooks & Albums Made Simply Beautiful

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am a big fan of books, and love art, but not as much a fan of "do-it-yourself" books. This book, however, changed my course in journaling. It describes clearly a process for making an "every day" journal into a piece of art. Gwen Diehn writes and then provides examples of how to create either a simple or an eloquent journal page. She sets a slow and steady pace giving the reader an opportunity to "absorb" the content. Each page builds on the preceeding page and its examples are helpmates for either the novice or the experienced artist/journaler to build his/her own skills. She elected to show some very experienced journalers, many of whom I recognize from other art communities, and all of whom are able artists. The book is not intimating, and it is perhaps its lack of pretense that both delights me, and confuses others into assuming this is a beginner's book. While I may have known some or many of the techniques Gwen Diehn shares in "Decorated Page" I found her re-igniting my desire to do it rather than just think it. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in journaling, collage and altered books. While the book is not necessarily directed to altered books or collage artists, many of the schema are apt for these venues, and certainly they can be easily adapted. This is one of the few books I read "cover-to-cover" and keep next to my ready read room. I am certain I will be referring back to its text and admiring its content for a good long time.

I'd been holding off on buying Diehn's book until I'd picked up a few that I thought were "more important". So when a friend sent it to me, I was AMAZED at how wrong I was about needing others on this subject.

Diehn goes through almost every aspect of creating a journal that's unique, personal, and most importantly (to me) VISUAL. There are background and layout techniques for those days when you just don't want to do too much drawing, lots of examples that are more inspiring than a personal visit from the Muse, and a TON of SUBSTANCE -- real ideas for turning your daily logs into works of art that you can flip back through with pride. It answered quite a few questions that I'd still had for a while now (and I wrote a book on visual journalling, so these were big questions), and got me moving in a forward direction again.

If you're just starting out, or if you've been keeping journals for what seems like FOREVER -- this book WILL HELP, WILL INSPIRE, and will be WORTH EVERY PENNY. Go get it now!

I recently discovered this book at my local library, and have to say that I was amazed by how wonderful it is! Many other books on this topic have been overwhelming to me, showcasing very beautiful books that seemed well beyond my skills. However, this book actually made me feel like I can actually do this myself, rather than just look at others' works. It does a great job covering the basics, including what supplies you can use, how to do basic book modifications, and examples of layouts and the purposes of creating such a journal. The instructions on preparing a book and sample pages are really well done, described in very clear terms with plenty of photos to illustrate each step. I also really enjoyed the various historical pieces throughout the book, to give some idea of how these books have developed over time. I would highly recommend this book, and have to disagree with the review who claimed this book is boring. It isn't! Some of the pieces shown are more simplistic (less cluttered!) than those in other books, but it is a valuable resource for anyone wanting to create an art journal or altered book.

I journal in the straightforward way with a lined journal, pen, and my thoughts. While I enjoy getting my words and impressions on paper, I often feel as if there is something missing from my memories - that there is something I can be doing to make my journals go from being average to amazing.

Enter THE DECORATED PAGE...you will be challenged to create lasting pieces of artwork within your journal pages and in the process evoke more feelings then you ever thought possible. I have often seen books with creative journalers' pages presented in a "look-see" kind of way, but never thought I'd be capable of making such pages myself.

Gwen Diehn presents lists of supplies you need to get started and many methods of creating within your pages such as mandalas, cut-outs, grids, and others. She also shows different ways to present your thoughts within your writing. You will be inspired to use this book as a springboard for your own artistic and thought-provoking journal entries.

There are many wonderful books on how to create handmade blank journals, but not much is shared on how to use them. This book fills the void, with both practical guidance on techniques and beautifully reproduced pages to inspire further. While certainly accessable to the beginner, I don't agree that this book is useful only to that group. I consider myself an "advanced" art journaler, and gobbled this book up! When done, I had enough new ideas to keep me busy for a year. Highly recommended.

I received this book for Christmas and I've taken it everywhere with me since then. It's the best gift I received. I found the pictures of journals inspiring. The author did a wonderful job of demonstrating new techniques. The techniques that weren't demonstrated can be easily figured out from the pictures. I feel creative and impowered by this book. Thank you!

I love this book! Blank books are so scary to me, too much white space to deal with. But Gwen's direction really helped calm my fears. My favorite part is how she shows many ways to prep the page before working on it. I have finished my first book, now I'm ready to start my second. If you've always wanted to take part in the art of journals, this book is a great help in doing so. There are a lot of photos of different works, many of which you say "I can do that!". That's what got me started.

I've been journaling since I was a child -- more than a half century ago -- and in all those years it never occurred to me to make those journals into more than just pages of writing. I took the writing (and thinking) too seriously, I guess.

"The Decorated Page" is full of ways to trim, color and decorate pages so there's more to a book than the words and thoughts. I'll have fun experimenting with this and it occurs to me that in using color, trims and other embellishments I'll be challenged to make my words more effective in order to compete with the decorations!

I've always kept a written journal, but never thought of being creative with them until I saw this book on display at a bookstore. I've sinced thumbed through many other similar books (including Perrella's) and Deihn's are more instructive and interesting. I bought this book before I discovered her other one (specifically for Journaling); I'd recommend the latter if you don't do scrapbooks.

She covers dry and wet processes, cutouts, copier transfers, design layout suggestions, altering book coverers, watercolor/gouache/stamping, and more. There's lots of examples for inspiration. This book is pretty complete.

I ordered this book in preparation for a trip to Alaska. I have always tried to keep travel journals, but since this waa a special trip, I wanted to do a special journal. I used sponging, stencilling, and watercolor techniques on my pages before I left (as suggested by the author) so I always had a colorful page for my journaling. The photos and explanations were very clear and it was fun to do a few pages each night in preparing for the trip. Some pages were left blank and I even tried my hand at sketching again while on the trip. I found that the Uniball waterproof pens worked very well for writing and sketching. I saved many pieces of souvenir folders, leaves, cocktail picks, etc. to add to my finished journal. The trip was so fabulous and exhausting I will have to complete my journal now that I am home. It will be a great accompanying volume to my photo album.