tutorial: altered recipe book

Shortly before our wedding, hubby gave me this notebook. It became not just my recipe book but a record of some of my first goals as new wife, the very few menu I knew then. That time, I would often call my mother for help. This 8 year old notebook is precious. So it is just right that I jazz it up, believing that one day my children and their children will see, hold and cook with it! :)

1. Painted the covers with Studio Claudine Hellmuth semi-gloss paint in traditional tan. 

2. Stamped some fruits, food images by Hero Arts, and colored it with Copic. I also used the same stamp set to stamp spoon and fork on my project. Cutest!

3. Then I took some old papers that I kept for this purpose.  American Crafts Abode papers are just so cute!Distressed it and adhered everything on  my book. Added some flowers, MT tapes, twines and other embellishments. 

4. After arranging and pasting all the embellishments, I added alphas and wrote some sentiments. Then, I painted the whole thing with Mod Podge to seal all the tiny details. I want to make sure this book will really stand the test of time! :)

4.  When the  Mod Podge was dry, I took out my Studio Claudine Helmuth in teal, mixed a bit of water and sprinkled paint randomly over the cover using a paint brush. 

There! My very precious recipe and home-making book. Would you like to see some pages inside? It's nothing fancy. But it is one of my possessions that money can't buy :) 

*click to make it larger

Thank you for looking! And warm greetings to all of you who visit my blog :) Bless the Lord!