The Beginnings of a Book....

I've had an idea kicking around in my head for quite a long time now, for a book that I want to make. Today I finally got around to starting it! :)

I'm not going to say too much about it right now, but I'll post each illustration page as I complete it. There will be pages with words on too, but I'll show those with the completed book.

Budding Sherlocks among you will have spotted that it's going to be bound with the Bind-it-all. I actually designed the page shape (including the BIA holes) in Inkscape and cut it on the Cricut with SCAL. I thought it would be easier to add the binding holes that way rather than punch the pages after I'd decorated them. You might also have noticed that it's going to be a word book of sorts (that's a letter S at the top right). You're getting no more out of me for now than that! :)

The background was created using 3 colours of acrylic paint - black, white and denim - which were blended on the page with a wet wipe. The moon is cast from paper clay in a silicone mould and was painted white after it had dried (the clay dries pure white, so I can't see a difference, lol).

The houses and birds are both custom stamps that I had made for me a couple of years back. Both were stamped with black Versafine ink. Using a small square punch I made a stencil for the window and coloured it by scribbling through the stencil with a Ranger white pen. The same pen was then used to write the "z"s in place. I'm really happy with how this has turned out, and I just hope that the other pages live up to it! LOL

Click on the image to see a larger view.

Soar

It's been quite some time since I last stamped something, too long! After (finally) completing the re-organisation of my crafting space, it feels great to be able to get back to it, I've missed it!

I started by painting the shallow wooden box white with acrylic paint. I cut a piece of chipboard the right size to fit inside it and created the background as an acrylic painting, although it does also feature some stamping - a harlequin background stamped in white acrylic paint and an alphabetic background from Cornish Heritage Farms.

The bird's eggs on the frame border are by PaperArtsy, and they were stamped and cut out from card I had painted with a turquoise wash. The birds eggs inside the frame are from a set by Oxford Impressions. The "soar" ticket and the fancy bookplate are both Tim Holtz Idea-ology.

The bird is my own design, cut on the Cricut. It was coloured with Peeled Paint distress ink and then stamped in Coffee archival ink with a phrase from Darkroom Door stamps. The edges were coloured with a Walnut Stain distress pad. The heart inside the compartment was cut out freehand and then coloured red with a Marvy pen. The white dots were applied with a Ranger Inkssentials pen.

Finally, the heart and wings were moulded from air-dry clay, using Krafty Lady art moulds. The heart was painted with red acrylic paint and then copper wax was applied to it. Wings and heart were then edged with Walnut Stain distress ink.

I hope you like it, I really had a lot of fun making it. Now to clean up the mess I made! :)