A Journal for Alex

When I was about 12 or 13, I started keeping a diary, one of those little leather volumes with the tiny little padlock and key.  (Did I really think that lock would keep out anyone with a hairpin and a little manual dexterity??)  As I recall, it was full of entries of word-for-word descriptions of the day's events, often involving boys on whom I had a crush.  I don't recall whatever happened to my diary from that time, I wish I still had it. 

To celebrate the occasion of my niece Alexandria turning 13 a few weeks ago, I thought it would be fun to make her a journal, in case she wanted to start recording her life.

As you will recall from my post about my February "crafternoon" with Marilyn (many thanks to Julie Fei-Fan Balzer of Balzer Designs for that expression, I love it!), I made some of the pages from painted craft paper.  I painted designs on a very large piece, like so:

and then cut it down to 6 x 9 inch pieces that ended up looking like this:

and this:

Here are some of the other finished pages from that journal.  I used lined paper, family photos, security envelopes, cardstock and whatever other bits and pieces I could find for the pages. It turned out so well, I almost didn't send it out to my niece but in the end, I figured I could always make another for myself!

Many thanks to Tracie Hanson whose Doodlicious Daybook (see her blog post of Jan 26th) was the inspiration for this journal.