If coming up with your own journaling material is no challenge for you, perhaps you just need a unique journal to inspire you.

Ivy Lane Designs recycles food and beverage packaging into journals, many of which feature Pennsylvania companies.

The Pottstown designer, who refuses to be named for privacy reasons, creates a small, handheld journal from an animal cookie carton, a Jell-O box or a Prilosec container — items most people send to a landfill.

On the Web site where they are sold, the designer writes: "Each is packed with acid-free, recycled (natch!) paper and backed with heavy-duty chipboard."

The designer said she makes each notebook individually, sometimes with the help of her children and husband, from boxes her friends donate or she picks from the trash.
"I'll come home, and there'll be a bag of boxes on the porch. It's like Christmas," the designer said.

Customers are attracted to the eco-friendly nature of the product as expressed in the company's logo: "Helping the environment, one recycled notebook at a time."

Her notebooks will be on display at the recycling fair at Whole Foods in Devon on April 12, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. You can also view them online at www.ivylanedesigns.com.