Vintage London travel journal "Londres en 8 Jours"

This little London travel journal is a custom order for the same person who bought my Paris travel journal. Its title is London in 8 Days and it was published in 1921.

The book was in bad shape when I bought it. The binding was shot, pages were falling out. Someone had even written in pen on the front (grrrrrrrr.....). It had such good bones though, I knew it could be lovely. The vintage ribbon on the bottom of the book is covering the writing. I dressed up the front with charms and more vintage and crinkle ribbons.

There's a chapter for each of the 8 days and I saved the first page of each one to use in the journal.

There are so many wonderful pages in this book. It was difficult deciding what to keep. I tried to keep the most popular images─the ones we think of first when we think of London, but also unusual ones like this fold out one.

The journal is a mix of lined pages, decorative scrap pages, blank pages for photos and the original pages of the guide. I die cut the tabs to match.

 

I lined scrapbook paper with transparent sticky plastic to reinforce and sewed two pockets. There is a velco closure to keep them shut (on the left). I've also included a plastic pocket with tags I made from leftover paper.

I recovered the front and back inside covers and added an elastic band to keep it shut. I've used ring binding so its new owner can change it around or add to it however she wants.

And here's the before. There's been an improvement, don't you think?

Material

Paper─Londres en 8 Jours, My Mind's Eye, Tilda Winterbird, lined and bond paper
Embellishments─vintage ribbon, crinkle ribbon, charms, elastic band