Art journaling has lots of forms and names: visual journal, collage journal, altered book,  junk journal, and more.

One of the practices that I love the most is altered children’s books.

Creating inside a loved children’s book with the seven elements of visual journaling is the most satisfying activity.

I begin by picking up the right book that touches my heart and calls me to engage with it.

I look at the images in the book and I read the story and then I ask myself a few questions:

• Do I love the colors and images in this book?
• Can I see myself covering up some of the images and “inserting” new images from other sources to create a new story?
• Do I connect with the text of this book?
• Can I invent another “hero” that will change the story?

Altering a children’s book is a work of healing inner parts that need our attention.

We create a new hero that symbolizes some of our past challenges and we give our hero special powers that will help her overcome any problems.

In this picture, you can see how I altered a children’s encyclopedia and change the name of the story to be a name “tells” a new powerful story.

“Lila and the world of ideas” is the new name of my altered book and I’m going to connect the ideas of the book with my new hero – Lila, a child that has special powers of time traveling and learning about herself through philosophical ideas.

I’m really looking forward to continuing this journey in my book and sharing it with you!!