Card holder book, in progress

My mom makes beautiful cards and she sent me a bunch to use.  I had a storage book for cards, but I have now outgrown it.  I decided to make a storage book to put these new ones in.

I went to the thrift store and bought a hardcover book in a size that would be big enough.  It was 50% off day, so the book was $1.25.

I am going to remove the cover from the rest of the book.  I measure the current thickness of the pages so that I make my box the same thickness. 

Book, cereal box to make the interior box, and bird stencil

I am going to decorate the cover before dealing with the inside box I will be adding.  I used gel medium to glue down some dyed paper towels.

I drew around the outline of one row of birds. I want the birds to be the paper towel color so I will be painting around them.

I liked the way the paper towel colors seeped through the white paint so I only one coat of paint on the paper towels, I think I ended up with three coats of paint on the rest of the cover.

The title of the book was still visible so I added a section of map from an atlas over it. I then used my bird stencil to paint three birds at the top.  I added blue paint in two of the corners. I am going to ink a plastic doily and press it on top of the blue paint.  I will show the updated cover and the interior in the next couple days.