Recipe Book

I recently got a coupon for a 40% discount at Borders Books and Music (although there's really no music anymore) and actually decided to use it. Normally, I ignore coupons for Borders, since they almost never have what I want in-store, and ordering through Amazon is cheaper and faster than ordering from them. But 40% off is pretty good, so figured I would go poke around and see what I could find. What I found was a pretty little journal. I am very big on pretty little journals, and have a plethora of them that may or may not actually ever had ink touch the page. I think it's probably an offshoot of my love of books. These are books that are perpetually full of promise; full of potential. Anyway, I found this lovely little reddish book with lovely gold detailing and embossing on the cover and an attached ribbon bookmark and an elastic band to keep it secret and keep it safe and all that other lovely precious-ness about a lovely new journal.
However, I didn't want it to be yet another lovely new journal sitting on a shelf with no ink ever touching its pages, so I decided I would turn it into my recipe book. Not my actual kitchen-type recipe book, but for my witchy recipe book of incense, tea, oils and other curious things. Never being one to be satisfied with a normal book with just ink in it, I've been adding pages to it, changing things around and making it as witchy as possible using pretty little scrap booking supplies. I also added a name plate to the front, as well as nifty little brassy thingies on to the front cover for added effect. I even added a little section in the back like the Practical Magic book of shadows that flips out from the back cover, although it only has about 20 pages in it. I've spent many a Charmed rerun filling it up and while there are still many pages to fill, I think it will probably be completely full by the end of the 4th of July weekend. I have acquired another one of these same journals in an odd yellow color, and intend to do the same thing to it once I finally cram the red one as full as possible.
I'm quite pleased with the way it's turning out. I hope it doesn't fall apart. My previous endeavors in altering journals usually ends bitterly with them losing entire sections of pages and generally makes me mad enough that I ignore the book's existence for a little while until the mood strikes me to start over and then I do. I don't usually use journals that are quite as nice as this one tough, and I'm hoping that will save me from the pain of a beautiful recipe book falling apart in my hands. Usually I use the uber-cheap blank books from Borders that are the 9X12ish size and about an inch think, which REALLY don't like it when you break their spines. This one is much better put together. I've included a pic of the red one with it's fancy do-dads on the cover, and the yellow one which is still pristine. One of my friends told me I should do the decorating on these and sell them, but I'm not sure I could do it...I tend to get attached when I work on them!
(And yes, that is my kitchen, and yes, the little gypsy woman and her crystal ball are salt and pepper shakers. Someday I'll tell you about my salt and pepper shakers. Hehehehehe)