Second on the 2nd

This post hearkens back to June, 2008.  I want to share a gift I made for my friend Halle of Halle's Hobbies.  She is also our guest designer and host this month at Art Journal Journey.  I will only be sharing the book and how I created each of the pages.

Halle's Birthday Book

This is a very personal book about what I know about Halle and how each letter of the alphabet reminds me of her and her family.

This is the book that I'm giving to her. I put it in a tin box that I "painted" using alcohol inks. 

Here is the completed book showing the front cover, the ribbons, and rings I used in its assembly.  For the substrate, I used large Behr paint chips, free from the paint store.

This shows the front and back covers, which I tried to match.

Here is a close-up of the book standing after it is complete.

And this is another view of the completed book.

This is the outside and inside front cover. The holly is from my garden and is a play on Halle's signature where she writes "Halle, pronounced Holly." I thought this was the perfect thing to introduce the book to the viewer. The outside page was covered with holly tissue and "ABC" stickers I toned down using beige glaze. (As an aside, Halle told me her children didn't "get" the Holly reference)

Since each page is back to back, I scanned the A and Z pages together.  Halle is an active spokesperson in her community for Autism. The puzzle pieces are part of the Autism logo. I began by gessoing each piece, then tried to paint the pieces. They didn't paint well with cheap acrylics, so I got out my oil pastels and went to town. They turned out much better than when I tried to paint them.

Z is for Zoo. I'm not sure if Halle and her family go to the Zoo, but I figured they probably will some day. The strips of animals are wallpaper chip samples I got several years ago. I don't think they give them out anymore.

B is for boy. Halle works closely with children, especially those in her children's school. I could have turned this into a C word (child), but I wanted C to be coffee, since she plans to make a coffee book in the near future. The boy is a transfer and the 7 is a brad. The 7 denotes the age of one of her children, who unfortunately has now turned 8. I first used stencils on the page, but they disappeared into the transfer medium. I eventually got out my staz-on and stamped the letters. As you can see, I don't stamp very well, especially when the stamps aren't clear and I can't see where they will "land."

Coffee just had to be the C word. However, where's the coffee? The cup is totally empty!! Maybe Halle or her hubby has already drank it.
Halle and I have talked about the rising cost of health care, insurance, and rising gasoline costs that cut into many middle class budgets. When I saw the word "deficit," I thought of the struggles she, her family, and many like her face each day and the way their lifestyle is being eroded due to a deficit in their paychecks.

Halle gets eggs from a neighbor and even decorated some this last Easter. What could be better than foam eggs and letters to represent "E?"

"F" could have stood for many things, but I found this awesome flower image and couldn't pass it up. I also had to stamp the flourish, since she also loves to add these to her pages. The "F" was stenciled on the page. You can see how the paint chip sucks up the ink.

"G" is for grad, something her youngest (EDIT: Mini-me from kindergarten) just did. I thought it was appropriate, since Halle will face many more graduations in the future, due to the new fad of graduating children at many levels, rather than waiting till they get through high school. For this spread, I used a napkin to which I added star brads.

Home is very important to Halle, and I love making houses. I couldn't pass up the opportunity when I found some text about Minneapolis/St. Paul. The wire circle was something I practiced when I learned how to make a decent circle. Two of the houses are left over from my anniversary squares. The "H" was stenciled using a watercolor marker, while "ome" was stenciled using a zig pen. The zig pen didn't soak into the paint chip as much.

I always get inspiration and artistic ideas from Halle, so had to include this cool image.

The "J" is so Halle can add photos of her children. Due to my perverse desire for internet security, Halle will have to add their names and photos.

"K" is for Halle's husband, who is a real prince. I used a large playing card, then added a mica chip over it. I attached the mica with brads, one of which was a heart.
I already had the "W" spread finished when I found this wonderful napkin filled with wine labels. So, instead of chucking the wine idea, I used the spread for "labels."

This is a magazine image of Minneapolis at sunset. I thought it was perfect for this book, even though I didn't get it smoothed out too well. The "M" is a sticker enclosed in a used bottle cap.
Halle has a huge connection with her neighborhood, so I turned a neighborhood into a square around a courtyard in which her new chiminea is the center. I actually had the idea and the image before she bought her chiminea. Yep, I drew the chiminea, something I struggled with. Instead of messing up the paint chip, I drew it on another, smaller paint chip and attached it to the page.

"O" is for openhearted. I knew I wanted to use the locket, but didn't know what word would go with it. Halle can remove the locket if she chooses, because I stenciled an "O" underneath it. And, YES, I feel that describes her to a T (or is that an O?). (EDIT: The locket was to include a gem in the small oval.  If memory serves, I sent the gem to her later so she could attach it herself.)

You can't think of Halle and not think of "Postage People." I had never heard of this trend until Halle started making them. I'm not as good at it as she is, but it was fun trying to find something. This will probably be the only one I'll ever make, but it's definitely to honor her.

"Q" is for Queen Halle. It matches the King spread, right down to the mica and the one red heart.

Halle's hubby repairs things. So, when I saw these circuit boards in a state of disrepair, I just had to dedicate this page to him.

"Stars" is for her children. The sparkling ones are glow-in-the-dark stick-ons. The background is a page from an astrology textbook.

I found this map of the "Twin Cities" and turned it into a tape transfer. I layered it over a pop-art statue that is outside the Minneapolis Art Museum.

Halle saves fuel by riding a bicycle with her children. However, I thought this image and dictionary description were funnier than a bicycle. It also gave me a spread (that was comical, too) for the letter "U."

I found this Disney paint chip in with the others I have collected and immediately thought "Vacation." I tumbled the faux sea glass, which I think looks a bit like the letter "V."

Wings are probably going out of phase in the art world, since they have been overused so much in altered art. However, my friend Theresa sent me some polyclay "rejects" with the word "wings," so I decided to use one in a spread. While I was outside watering my garden, these whirly-gig seeds came down in my driveway. The idea was born to turn them into wings. I first covered them with embossing fluid, then copper embossing powder to match the copper in the polyclay piece. Then I found an image that I thought wings would go with. Maybe wings are out of favor, but I had to make one last spread using them!!

X was the one letter I really struggled and struggled with. I thought about an X-ray, but didn't want to bring up any painful memories if one or more of her children had something broken. I have no idea if Halle has any musical interests or not, but I thought this would be the best choice. I swear, it was probably out of frustration that I settled on this image, because this was the last one I made. I used clear embossing powder (ep) on this, and left my heat gun too long and scorched the image. Yep, that's the brown part on the page. However, the white part of the paint chips took the ink differently than the colored parts, so they also took more ep. I learn something every time I do an art project, and this was a very valuable lesson.

When I think of Halle, I think of true love. I thought of when she first met her soon-to-be husband and the young love they must have shared. Thus, this spread was born around a valentine ATC I made this year. The hearts were cut from a napkin, then outlined with gold leafing pen. Outlining was hard, since the napkin was so thin and wimpy.

This is the back outside and inside covers. The outside is the same as the front cover.  The inside began with a stamped image from River City Rubber, then another image on a transparency I attached using eyelets.

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Since I still haven't figured out how to use the new Inlinkz, we are going to once again link using Mr. Linky, but remember, I have NO way to remove your link if you make a mistake.  And although Second on the 2nd is normally open for five days, this link will close tomorrow afternoon at 4 p.m. when I post our first T party in June.  Since my Mr. Linky is a free membership, I can only post one link at a time.

Now it's time for you to link your second look on the 2nd.  The rules are quite simple.  All you have to do is bring back a post that you are especially proud of, or one you shared before anyone knew your blog existed.  Then link below and Bleubeard and I, along with other Second on the 2nd friends, will be by to visit.
 
Remember to share something from your blog that you showed previously. Be sure the link goes directly to your Second on the 2nd post and not your blog in general.