This brings new meaning to the word bookmobile:

What a lovely piece and a great idea for old books! You can find this book mobile at Shophouse, along with other vintage books turned into art:

While the book sculptures are easily the most stunning and eye-catching decor pieces in the shop, you’ll also find collage jewelry (mostly necklaces), original drawings, and even these really nice sewn paintings. There’s definitely some great art if you’re looking for something a little different to decorate your house with!

Lovin’ these journals from The Writer’s Book:

These journals are made with different kinds of papers for their covers, such as Japanese or Indian papers. All hand-stitched and one of a kind. And they all lay flat when opened so you can sketch or write your heart out with ease!

indie*galore has been on hiatus for a while now, but it’s back for the New Year!

It’s been a reflective period, and a good time to maybe write some thoughts down. What better place to write a few thoughts down than these wonderfully made journals from amanobooks?

All these journals are made from mixed media: photographs, ephemera, paint, wax, stamps and all kinds of found materials. The result is not just a journal, but a work of art.

There is also some mixed media art available at amanobooks, like this lovely piece:

Did you ever go to the library a lot as a kid and thumb all those awesome old books?

I don’t remember this from my childhood, but I think I would have checked it out if I’d seen it:

Hysterical title. Thank goodness the folks over at Attic Journals found this book and turned it into a journal.

At Attic Journals, old books find new life as journals. The covers are taken, then bound together with wire loop and filled with 75 sheets of fresh paper. There’s quite an eclectic collection, from a cover of a book called “Flying Animals” to a Hardy Boys book to this pretty awesome Spanish textbook cover:

You’ll feel like you’re in grade school or middle school all over again!

There’s nothing like curling up in a chair with a good book, or bringing a stack with you to read on a plane, train, or some other fun place.

But what about being able to wear books? How, you ask? Why, with these totally unique and wonderful earrings!

These earrings are made by Nicolette at The Small Book Company. The earrings are painstakingly handmade, with text paper on the inside, gold wire, and either recycled paper or Italian printed paper (the kind used on the inside of some leather-bound books) for the covers. Each pair is a nice accent, and they’re just an interesting concept for jewelry.

There are all kinds of colors and patterns, some bright and bold, some more neutral and subtle. But if you love books, there’s no better way to show it. If you fancy, you might even want to write small notes or draw small pictures in your earrings (the pages are blank).

As a bonus, each earring comes on a card that doubles as a mini book about the history of books!

Books come in all sizes, can be pretty to look at, multi-purpose and are all-round awesome in general. Take this sweet sampling from Providence, Rhode Island’s If’n Books + Marks:

Wood Buttonhold Stitch Photo Album

Rabid Comb Smacker Journal

Accordion Book Necklace

See? All different purposes. And all eye-catching, too.

I especially like the Smacker Journal — whose description says “We like to refer to this series as ‘The Smacker’ for the aesthetic punch it packs in its small size, but also for its ability to double as a harmless smacking tool for discourteous or bothersome cohorts.” It’s a limited edition, with only 100 available! They are exclusively sold at If’n Books’ Etsy shop.

The accordion necklaces are also pretty brilliant. Not only are they pretty cool to look at, but you never know when you will need to jot down a note. Or maybe you want to write an ode to your favorite person and give him/her the necklace as a gift. Or something like that.

There’s nothing like walking into a used bookstore or your local library and perusing all those old cloth-bound books. (Or maybe you’re lucky enough to have a bunch lying around the house). They just don’t make hardbound the same way anymore. Old cloth-bound books rock! Sometimes they’d have weird stains on the covers, but that just added to the charm.

Now, you can get some kickass journals made out of said old books. Something like this:

(The man kind of reminds me of the Monopoly guy. What a cool cover this must have been. I wonder what kind of book it was. But I digress.)

This journal comes from Los Angeles-based Tyler Bender Book Company. Tyler takes old books, painstakingly resizes some of their covers — this particular blue journal happens to be 4 x 6 inches. But there are some full-sized books; there’s a recycled Bible cover adorning one of the journals.

A variety of papers fill the books. Those papers range from the plain lined paper from your school days (college-rule? wide-rule? aaaaaah!) to colored paper to old accounting ledgers (aaaaaaah again!). And each sheet of paper is hand-cut. (Considering most of these journals have 200 pages or so, that’s a heck of a lot of cutting.)

Each book is a surprise, and they’re almost too pretty to write or draw in!

And even if you don’t, isn’t that half the fun of traveling?

Sometimes it’s nice to look back on your trips. Maybe you like to keep little knickknacks from trips, like interesting candy wrappers (I have a Skittles wrapper written in French from a trip to Vancouver, for instance) or train tickets. Or maybe you sat in the park one day and saw something that caught your eye and you wanted to sketch it. Or you found some money on the side of the street and wanted write that memory down so you could preserve it.

With a travel journal from Destination:Unknown, you could do all of the above.

These travel journals feature plenty of writing room (100 pages of lined paper), and blank paper and grid paper. It’s also got a small pocket for those little trinkets. The journals are also lightweight so they’re easy to carry around.

They also come in pretty sweet covers, like this hanami flower cover:

Or, there are map covers, which feature a different part of the United States!

Do check them out!