I’ve been using embroidery to embellish all kinds of items since I was a child. Actually, my daughter has caught on to that idea, too, and like me, she loves to add little touches to pillow cases, bed sheets, t-shirts, fabric bags and more. It’s so fun to have a little unexpected sweet surprise where people least expect it!

Stitched Blooms has so many awesome motifs that are based in flowers, leaves and other natural elements. It has over 300 ideas in the book (and the included CD), plus it shows different ways to use the motifs, including a baby quilt, dala horse, wall art and more. I have so many favorites and have already added a few to my projects. I especially love the classic English, Scandanavian and Mexican designs!

Since writing in a journal is such a wonderful form of personal expression, I thought that the idea of creating your own journal that portrays a sense of “you” would be a perfect place to write your private thoughts and feelings. Journal Your Way comes with complete instructions (and handdrawn illustrations) to show how to make lots of different types of books and covers, too. There are also examples of pages from them to show what they look like on the inside as well.

It’s seems to me like it could be difficult to make your own book, but there’s a lot of helps in Journal Your Way to refer back to. I’m definitely a novice at bookbinding, but I was fascinated by all the interesting techniques and I’m trying to figure out how to do the “longstitch cover”, which I think will be a good place for me to start!

Here are the very simple multiple-pamphlet binding instructions.