My friend Halle's 2014 birthday gift!

Yes, you read correctly.  I was almost a year late with the gift.  I bet the PO people thought I was looney when I wrote Happy Birthday 2014 on the package.  But better late than not at all, right?  I had to laugh at my friend Voodoo Vixen who wrote in a comment:

you are going to have to wait for your birthday card but then there is nothing new in that!!

I OBVIOUSLY won't have to wait as long as Halle had to wait for her last year's gift.

I know many of the T Stands For Tuesday crowd saw this on Halle's blog on Tuesday, but I am showing it because I wanted to explain the various materials and fabrics I used.  This is the cover to the book.  I finally finished it the other day and sent it on its merry way.  I was hoping to determine how to make it better, but, after reading the instructions in Ruth Rae's book, Layered, Tattered, and Stitched at least six times, I finally gave up and decided it wasn't going to get any better.  I made a similar one for Krisha last year, and it also had the same flaws this one has.

The background fabric was colored using my handmade shimmering mists.  I also sewed various papers and umbrella fabric swatches to the back.

Before the color in my printer died, I printed this on some loosely woven cotton.  I should have found a tighter weave, but I used what I had.  I backed it with umbrella swatches and a lovely fabric I found in my stash that had gold threads running through it.

This is the inside front cover, which has some of my rusted fabric sewn over very thin curtain fabric.  It was easier to flip the photo than make you stand on your head to see it.

For Page 1, my background was snow dyed fabric,

over which I sewed lace and some shimmering mist fabric.  To that I added three tyvek flowers and a sentiment: "Strangers are just friends waiting to happen."

The background for page 2 is a hodge-podge of ink, paint, and shimmering mists over which I sewed lace, an oatmeal dyed heart, and a paper rose I fussy cut and added to oatmeal dyed fabric.

This page (Page 3) was very special to me because Halle had sent me the ribbon I used to surround the fabric and buttons I adhered with E6000.  The top background fabric is snow dyed, and underneath is flour resist.

Dyed lace and floral fabric sit over the flour resist fabric that makes up Page 4.  I added a rub-on at the top and dyed ribbon (using Staz-on and alcohol) and buttons for embellishments.

This, Page 5, is one of those pages that started life as an inspiration flag.  This was a syrup resist background with lots of added lace, fabric, and ribbon.  Have I mentioned how much I hate my handwriting?

I know I've mentioned this before, but I don't see how to show the back side of these pages unless you stand on your head, or turn the book around.  Maybe Rae didn't decorate the backs of her book???

I sewed the word "Love" on the ribbon because it seemed like an easy one I could handle by stopping and starting the machine.  The background fabric is syrup resist.  The other embellishment on Page 6 is a rose I was gifted with a few years ago.

OK, sort of easy.

Snow dyed fabric was used on Page 7.  I added lace to make up the difference in the size of the page.

Shades of last summer make up the raspberry stained fabric I used for the bird.  I'm still not sure where I got that glitzy fabric, but I still like it.

Snow dyed fabric makes up the background of Page 8.  I added a flower with a brad center and three pieces of bias tape to finish out the page.

The inside back cover started with fabric I sprayed with shimmering mists.  I added more misted fabric, dyed lace, and fabric I dyed using Staz-on and alcohol.  I wrote "Made with love" using a Sharpie.

The outside back cover was last.  The background was created using watered down paint, shimmering mists, and alcohol mixed with Staz-on.  The large heart was misted with a smaller heart used as a mask.

I used Bleubeard's and my signatures with my "handmade by" stamp.

By the time I added the final heart, my final needle was broken.  Not to be deterred, I adhered it using fabric glue.  I couldn't decide which side I preferred,

so I left it so the recipient (Halle) could peek behind it to see the back.

I can't say I had fun making this book, because it was very frustrating.  I simply could NOT figure out the directions, so set off to make the book the only way I knew how.

Thanks for looking, and I hope to get Halle's 2015 gift to her before 2016!  Happy, happy belated birthday HALLE.