Explore your journey with DV and CC: recycled art journal

Hello my dear crafty friends and welcome to my " take an ugly notebook and make it pretty journal"  post.

This time I took this Oral B notebook (that's what you get for being a dentist) and totally recycled it to a pretty travel journal.

This is how it looked before. 

First I painted it with Tattered Angels Decor and DIY Jade color paint. This is a perfect paint to cover this paper cover with just one single layer and no primer at all!

Then I gathered and trimmed some lovely papers to make the colorful red/Kraft/beige cover piece.
I used Cherry Lynn Designs card makers dies to make 2 dotted red pieces, one Kraft script piece and one Vintage America map piece.
Then a smaller pieces from Vintage America 8*8'' pad were cut  and punched with Binding edge punch. I cut one single Post card from the same set and a few USA images from Ephemera set and paper cuts.

The trimmed papers were arranged to a " like layered card" piece.

Now it is a FUN time! Stamping it is!

I used this adorable 7 Gypsies stamp set that was just a perfect fit for the theme.

Most of stamping was made over the Post Card piece and I stamped the Hot air balloon over the patterned paper and hand cut it to glue over the piece.

 And now the finished project:

I just added a piece of natural twine under and over the arranged cover piece and glued it over the painted cover.

I added a die cut Vintage Bike (double cut from cardstock) and those USA 2015 title on the corner.

More red twine and colorful staples and this cover is all done.

 It's pretty flat after all as it's not for a display, but for a real use. So I decided that those layers are  all I need to finish this travel journal.