paper bag journal

I keep painting lunch bags, and decided to move forward with my idea of binding them into a book:

It's got a simple pamphlet stitch binding:

The open end of the bags form pockets:

Inside the pocket is a plain piece of card stock with a handy tab attached to make it easy to pull out. These could be used for collage, or writing, or more paint (or a combination of all three):

Here are the inside pages.   

I wasn't sure if this binding was going to work so I used my least favorite bags for this one.

I like these bags just fine, but there are others I like a lot more and I didn't want to use them as guinea pigs. 

The pages are pretty busy.

I'm not sure how it will work to truly use it as a journal.

 I suppose you could add photos and other mementos to the pages.

Or you could write/draw on small plain pieces of paper and glue them down on top of the painted page, leaving some of the background visible.

Some pages already have space for writing.  And you could certainly tone down some pages with gesso and incorporate your own imagery.

It's got a lot of potential.

I'm really pleased with the way this turned out, and it's such a simple project.

I think I'm going to host a "paper bag journal" swap at MMSA.

Meanwhile, I've got more paper bags to bind!