Six days of work and an epic fail

 

  For those of us who live in the states, today is Memorial Day, the day in which we honor our service people who died in the service to our country.  Not to be confused with Veterans Day in November, which honors all who serve or served, Memorial Day is specifically for those who fell in the line of duty.  Honor them today, please.

Some of you may have noticed I was offline from early Thursday to Sunday, first due to a lightening strike that took out my electricity, then, when I tried to restart my computer once the electricity was back on, something was fried inside.  Thankfully, Scott knew what the problem was when I called him.  He ordered the part from Amazon and showed up Sunday to install it.  I have a LOT of catching up to do.

This will be my final entry for Art Journal Journey using our host Matilde of Craftowanie's theme which is Birds.  I want to thank Matilde for all the beautiful art she has given us this month.  Not only has she given us beautiful and inspiring art, she has been the perfect host.  I look forward to her joining us as a host next year, too.  

I spent six days on this and I created an epic fail.  More on that later.  I believe this is the smallest altered book I have ever created.  It is 1 inch square (2.54 centimeters square not 25.4 cm, as Valerie pointed out.  My bad.  I put the period in the wrong place).  This is the front cover.  

 

The book is held together using two plastic rings which at one time were free when you picked up a certain brand of matching or contrasting paint chip samples.  If you live in the states, they came from the paint department at Home Depot.  I added silver feathers, two on the bottom and one on the top rings.  To cover the openings on the rings which I glued shut, I added hand dyed (by me) lace.

You are now looking at the inside cover and the first page of the book that takes you through all the seasons.  Note the bird on the inside cover was glued at a 90 degree angle.  That should have been a forewarning and stopped me.  But I persisted.

Looks like spring is about to arrive in the garden.  I tried to match the colors in the paintings to the background colors (the squares).

Spring and new life have definitely arrived in this little book.

More spring in the garden.  I apologize.  Not only do I have an epic fail with the book, it appears my photos have failed, too.  Of course, I was taking these and the photos directly above this one at the time the electricity went off in my neighborhood due to a lightening strike.

Summer has now arrived and I still have no electricity in my home.

I decided to wait for the electricity to come back on to get at least partially decent photos.

Summer was looking good until I used my crop-a-dile to cut holes in the wrong spot in the squares.

I didn't even notice at first and kept punching holes on the wrong edge.

That meant autumn and winter were affected.  Not only were they punched incorrectly, it meant the reverse sides were incorrect, too. 

Winter is on its way and I am devastated.  I put SO much time into this book, only to mess up in the end.

We'll soon be celebrating Christmas in the bird book.  Note the back inside page is on the bottom in the photo.

It's too bad this bird needed to be rotated in order to see it properly.

Finally, my least favorite birds grace the back cover.  Too bad the image had to be rotated in order to appreciate it.

All of the birds were found in a calendar with the exception of the two covers and their inside fronts.  Those images were fussy cut from a book on birds Erika gave me for my birthday.  I first fussy cut each of the images, then glued them to one inch squares.  I then flattened each one overnight, then glued the pages back to back using white PVA glue.  I punched the squares, some in the wrong location using my beloved Crop-a-dile.  We all know the saying "measure twice, cut once."  I need to add make sure to both measure twice and check position twice.

Thanks for sticking with me through this tragedy stupid move on my part.  You still have another day to create something for Art Journal Journey's Bird challenge before we introduce a new host on the 1st.