The Saffron Sea Journal

This journal is an altered Mills and Boon book that nearly ended up in the charity shop. I liked the 70s feel of the cover, the title and author name too much to get rid of it though, so it stayed on the shelf a bit longer. My last journal was a re-used gardening diary and I really enjoyed the way that what was already in it sometimes influenced what I did with the pages. For this book I gessoed most of the pages, leaving phrases showing. The book is about a florist and has lots of lovely descriptions of colour and flowers. I have tried to use the phrases in a page but not always if they didn't fit. I glued some pages together, and have changed some in other ways such as printing from a photo or cutting a hole. I have really enjoyed using it so far, and wanted to do a one off blog of the whole thing. The paper is lovely to work on-either gessoed or not. It has a woven texture that is especially fun with ink and watercolour. The book needed some reinforcement as the gesso expanded the pages. I sewed through the central part of the book into the spine. I also punched holes to put a tie through to hold the book closed. One page a day to come!