If you love handmade journals filled with pockets, inserts, tea-dyed pages, and little tucked-in treasures, this is a quiet tour through exactly that. I'm walking through three pieces from a recent Etsy restock — an altered paper bag housing a full journal, and two Reader's Digest altered book journals, each paired with a curated treasure box of loose goodies — showing everything that went into them and sharing a few of the techniques along the way.
What we cover
This is a flip-through of three handmade items listed in my Etsy shop: a paper bag altered into a pocket-filled journal carrier, and two naked hardcover journals made from upcycled Reader's Digest books, each sold with a treasure box of embellishments, inserts, and specialty papers. Along the way I touch on the construction choices behind each piece — how the covers were lined and reinforced, how the tea-dyeing was done, and what the "naked journal" concept actually means.
What you'll learn
How an altered paper bag becomes a journal carrier — the bag's gusset is glued down to create a built-in pocket, so it can't open fully but gains structure. Both sides end up with three pockets each, and the journal nestles inside as its own contained home.
What a "naked journal" is and why I make them — the hardcover journals I show here have no embellishing on the interior pages. They're bound with a variety of paper types — tea-dyed pages, coloring book pages, graph paper, specialty papers, bright vellum that's been tea-dyed to soften it — but the journaling spaces are left untouched. The idea is to give someone a starting point with interesting papers without making decisions for them about what goes on the pages.
How to line a journal cover for sturdiness — for the paper bag journal's cover, I glued book pages down and then added an extra piece of scrapbook paper behind it. That second layer is what keeps it from feeling flimsy. A cover that flexes too easily won't hold up to use, and that extra sheet makes a real difference.
How to reinforce an altered hardcover book spine — Reader's Digest books are great for altering, but the spines can be weak once you've reworked the interior. I reinforce the spine on both of the hardcover journals shown here before sewing fabric onto the cover and gluing it down.
How to tea-dye vellum and bright specialty papers — very bright or high-contrast papers — the kind that would look jarring against aged, warm-toned pages — can be brought into a more harmonious palette with tea dyeing. One of the pages I show was a vivid purple-pink vellum that softened beautifully after dyeing.
What to include in a journal treasure box kit, including:
- Small booklets with blank pages for journaling or embellishing
- String-tie envelopes and mini pouches with heat-sealed edges
- Tea-dyed and coffee-dyed index cards
- Perforated specialty pages, photo overlays, and embossed cardstock
- Sewn book-page "baggies" closed with a paperclip
- Journaling spot cards cut from large magazine or book images
- Loose tags for embellishing, small stickers, and vellum pieces
- A scrapbook paper pocket with two blank tags tucked inside
How to create journaling spot cards from large book or magazine images — if you have beautiful large images that feel too big to use as-is, you can cut them down and turn them into small journaling cards. I have a full tutorial on this linked in the video description, and the same technique appears throughout the paper bag journal.
How to make a bookmark tassel from a repurposed hand fan — I show one of these inside the journal; there's a full tutorial on it linked in the description as well.
Tips & gotchas
Line your journal covers with a second layer. Whether you're making a soft cover from collaged book pages or altering an existing one, gluing an extra piece of scrapbook paper to the inside face makes a noticeable difference in how sturdy the finished cover feels. Without it, a decorative paper cover tends to flex and bow.
Glue down the bag's gusset to create the pocket. When you're altering a paper bag, the gusset wants to stay open — but if you glue it flat, that collapsed edge becomes a proper pocket wall. It limits how wide the bag opens, but that's fine when the bag is a carrier rather than something you're reaching into freely.
Tea-dye very bright vellum before including it in a journal. Vellum is beautiful as a translucent page layer, but bright white or highly saturated vellum can look out of place next to warm, aged papers. Even a light tea-dye pass softens the color enough that it reads as intentional rather than jarring.
Reinforce the spine on altered hardcover books. Repurposed hardcover books — Reader's Digest volumes are a favourite of mine for this — often have spines that weren't built for the stress of having their original signatures removed and replaced. Take the time to reinforce the spine before finishing the cover. It's much harder to fix after the fabric is sewn down and the cover is dressed.
Treasure box contents don't have to match exactly. The two journal kits I show here have the same types of inclusions but aren't identical — different card images, slightly different papers, small variations throughout. That's fine. I use what I have, and the result is that each kit is a little bit its own thing even within the same format.
The principles are the same: structure from what you have, lined and reinforced so it holds, filled with papers that invite someone else to make something.
