My New Hand Bound Art Journal with Embroidered Cover

I am a big fan of art journaling as many of you know. But with the swap taking up my time in April, it’s been way too long since I wrote about my biggest obsession… So today I am sharing my latest hand bound book with you guys. It’s an Art Journal with a free form mixed media embroidered cover that I think turned out so yummy.

At the end of this post there’s a quick flip through video of this shiny new journal too. I hope you like it.

With this blank book I have actually managed to combine a couple of my passions into one project; abstract painting and embroidery on the cover of a journal I bound myself (love journaling, love book binding). The binding method is one I’ve done a couple of times before. I’m not sure what the proper name for it is, but I call the binding “diamond stitch”, since it creates a decorative and rad diamond pattern on the spine.

I love how this book came together. I think it’s going to be my Art Journal for the rest of the summer. With the yellow cover it has that sunshine feel I’m so longing to walk into right now. I’m hoping by August all these pages will be filled (there’s about 100 watercolor pages in this book), or at least a lot of them will be covered with my doodles, art and journaling.

The Embroidered Cover

You can cover a book you make with any flexible material you have, be it old maps or oil cloth or fabric, but it’s fun to make the “pattern” yourself.

This book cover is made out of a thick, off-white fabric that I had in my stash. I painted it with acrylics and ink, almost covering the entire surface. That could’ve been enough, but I then took it in my lap and made this yummy embroidered piece out of it.

With free form embroidery you can use any stitch and style of sewing, and any embroidery floss you’ve got, to make marks. I made quite a few crosses using pink, yellow and white pearl cotton thread. It’s like making marks with a pen, only slower. Plus the surface becomes more textured and interesting with embroidery.

I love love love embroidery!

Flip through video

Here’s a quick flip through video of what’s inside my new art journal with embroidered cover too:

If you can’t see the video click here to watch Flip Through of my Art Journal by Studio iHanna on YouTube.

Feel free to subscribe to my YouTube Channel Studio iHanna and give the video a thumbs up there as well as leaving me a comment below. I’m going to make quite a few videos in the near future, because I’m finally mastering the editing process a bit better, and I’m loving putting these together a lot! Thanks for watching and leaving your feedback below. I’d love to know what you think of this short flip through: too long, too short, too blurry, or just wonderful? Hehe. Let me know!