Pimp your Moleskine – another patchwork journal

Pimp your Moleskine notebook or journal with patchwork collage iHanna style

 

It’s Pimp Your Moleskine time! I know, it’s my favorite craft too. This time I’ve turned a regular Moleskine into a patchwork journal (with owl image on the front cover since last week was hoot owl week around here!).

Pimp your Moleskine notebook by iHanna, Decoupage collage patchwork on Moleskine Notebook #moleskinehack

I love using a plain (blank) Moleskine notebook as my daily writing diary. I love morning pages and diary writing! I love having a blank page where I can write however I want and whatever I want. Big, small, crocked, blue ink or black pen, flower doodles or magazine images that I write over.

Pimp your Moleskine by iHanna, this is the back of my newly pimped Diary #moleskinehack

Yay!

I love this colourful notebook that I carry with me in my hand bag everywhere. I am out of practice on the morning pages, but I try to catch up every now and then. I love having journaling time during the weekend.

Pimp Your Moleskine by iHanna, front view of the patchwork with owl stamp I carved

I need an hour of writing time, at least once a week but would love if I could squeeze it into every day (though that is not possible). Just a pen, my coffee and me. And silence, yes please.

The Spine of my Pimped Moleskine Notebook, photo and patchwork by iHanna #patchwork #diy

I?ve already filled a yellow Moleskine (a special Pacman edition) with journaling, so the second one I got did not stay yellow for long. Instead I decided to pimp it and make a collage patchwork covering the whole outside. I love this kind of quick but very satisfying craft. I?ve written about how to do this in the past, and all you need is some patience and gel medium.

Owl stamped front pimp your own moleskine sketchbook, photo and patchwork by Hanna Andersson aka iHanna #DIY

This time I decided to go with a more DIY feel, personalizing it even more with a few of my own painted papers, a stamp and some bought Japanese prints that I really like.

Carved owl stamp
The owl on the front is from a hand carved stamp. The backside image is a scrap die cut birdhouse surrounded by summer flowers. The whole book feels summerish to me.

So, a notebook that became a bit more personal than it was before, don’t you think? Let me know if you’ve ever pimped your moleskine or other notebook?

Further Moleskine inspiration

Moleskine is a cool brand. Check out how they are debossing a custom edition moleskine and their promotional video for the Moleskine Cat Journal (links removed after they stopped working). Love their animated journal videos, but I’m not sure all of these “custom books” that they’ve been making lately are… fun to fill in? Or useful? I know I don’t want that kind of limitation. I’d rather custom make my own books than let a company decide what kind of memories I should collect about my cat, wine, books or traveling… I’d just add in tabs for specific areas of interest, write my own topics and journal away, but maybe they’re helpful to someone who needs a nudge and fill-in-the-blank prompts on their pages.

Also, you can learn how to create your own paper patchwork with my pimp your notebook tutorial!

12 Responses

  1. i love this one even more than the first! it’s so wonderfully colorful, and i adore the variety of patterns.. in every square inch there is so much to be seen!

  2. Hi, Hanna, I just got a brand-new Watercolor Moleskine, so I may give your patchwork tutorial a try! Thanks for sharing this with us.

    Your work is always so beautiful and colorful–and I admire your ability to do art every day, no matter how you are feeling. I am working toward that goal myself.

  3. A quick question: Do you cover the final product with varnish or something? Otherwise I am wondering if the papers will get very scuffed or beaten up.
    Thanks!

    • Sandra, glad you like the tutorial too. If your notebooks will be put in your handbag or be handled a lot I think it’s a good idea to use some varnish and add one or two coats of it on top the paper patchwork. This will protect the papers as well as make them stick better.

  4. Heheeheee… love the title to your post!
    Great idea, thanks for sharing.
    Isn’t it fun to carve your own stamp?! :]

  5. Ooh, all those colors! Just beautiful. I fell in love with your little owl stamp, what a cutie!

  6. Vibrant and personal! A great example. I don’t tend to use moleskins as a lot of my work is quite thick so I use ring bound books but I could definitely see myself applying a technique like this to my current blank covered one. I’m thinking of coming up with a personal logo and then having it made into a stamp too. Can’t decide on what my logo is though :/

  7. This inspired me so much that I took a sheet of adhesive layers, put it in the color laser printer, and printed out three of my own paintings on it! Now, I’m going to pull off the labels and put them on my brown moleskine for the sketchbook project! SO COOL!