Making Journals by Hand: 20 Creative Projects for Keeping Your Thoughts (Paperback)

~ Jason Thompson (Author) "Some visual journals are created spontaneously, while others are crafted with purpose..." (more)
Key Phrases: Peter Madden, Juliana Coles, Roz Stendahl (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Is your journal collecting dust instead of keeping your thoughts? Have you gotten out of the habit of writing on a daily basis?

Making Journals By Hand will get you excited about keeping a journal again, with fresh ideas on how to make and keep your own daily journal, travel journal, garden journal, art journal, recipe journal, and more. Use art studio techniques such as rubber stamping, wax resist, leaf transfer, paper cutting, and plaster paper, to enhance and really personalize the pages of your journal.

--Know How: More than 20 journal projects, with lots of variations.

--Writing Tips to keep you writing every day.

--Creative Sparks: Practical advice on changing points of view, with prompts to get the creative juices flowing.

--Inspiration and Ideas: Ideas for themed journals to record travel adventures, gardens, dreams, baby events, weddings, and family events.

About the Author

Jason Thompson is the founder and president of Rag & Bone Bindery in Providence, Rhode Island, the largest, private hand bookbinding studio in America solely creating hand-bound blank books, albums and journals for the gift and stationery industries. He began journal writing in 1986 while spending a year walking across the country from Los Angeles, CA to Washington, DC on the Great Peace March and has been keeping visual journals ever since. He currently resides in Providence, Rhode Island.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Quarry Books (May 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564966763
• ISBN-13: 978-1564966766
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #258,788 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Creative and Inspiring, August 10, 2003

By	Studio Goddess (Maryland) - See all my reviews

I loved this book, but when I got "Making Memory Books and Journals by Hand" I was surprised to find "Making Journals by Hand" is actually included in that text in full: word for word, page for page, project for project .

Instead of buying "Making Journals by Hand" and "Making Memory Boxes", save some money and buy one book: "Making Memory Books and Journals by Hand". This book combines all of the projects above and then some.

All of these books have great projects and instructions.

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fresh & Creative ideas for decorating journals, April 30, 2001

By	Angel Lee "Liocorno Amethyst Moonstone" (Cleveland, OH United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Do you have tons of unadorned journals that you have made? Have you ever wondered what to put in them? If so, this is the book for you. It is packed with fresh ideas for decorating all those blank journals.

The book starts out teaching the basics of creating books. This includes making a spiral bound book, and rebinding a store-bought journal or vintage book. The instruction here tends to be a bit incomplete for a true beginner. If you want to make a journal from scratch, buying a true bookbinding book is highly recommended.

There are great ideas on variety of journal styles including daily, travel, recipe, garden, artists' sketchbook and triptychs. Each one has a different and easy-to-create binding. The instructions are step-by-step and accompanied by photos.

Where this book really excels is in turning your book into an artistic masterpiece. There are lots of creative project ideas and techniques that I have not seen used in this way before. Some include wax resist, image transfer, plaster paper, emulsion lifts, and creating carved stamps.

The examples though the book and in the gallery are stunning. The resource and book list is very helpful. It's nice that it also includes a list with email address of all the artists in the book. If you want to turn you journal into a true work of art, this is the book to get.

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Making Journals By Hand, October 3, 2000

By	C. Miller (Warsaw, MO 65355) - See all my reviews

Making Journals By Hand by Jason Thompson - 125 pages, over-size paperback Published by Rockport Publishers

From the publishers of Making Memory Books by Hand also comes this wonderful book - Making Journals by Hand - which enables you to leap tall mental buildings in a single bound and become SUPER-CREATIVE & ARTISTIC PERSON!!! I'm not exaggerating (at least, I don't think I am). Lists of supplies needed and suppliers, detailed instruction for creating journals from scratch or for reusing old hardback books or spiral notebooks, lots of photos of fascinating and unusual journals, reasons to keep your own as well as theme ideas (recipe, travel, garden, and nature to name a few), curious ways to fill them (Remember the wax resist technique from grade school? It's in here, simple to use with wonderful results.) that are not complicated, how to choose lasting supplies and care for the finished product (Did you know newspaper clippings will cause acid free paper to degrade over time? See page 11.) a constant flow of tips and `jump starters' and . . . well, it made me want to start a journal just for the journal ideas I was getting while looking through and reading the book! Good, good book.