Working on my tea cup book cover

 

 

Some of you may remember the four teacup pages/signatures I made.  These are really thick  and most have at least three, sometimes four or more layers of papers and cardstock.

 I found a book that was slightly larger than the signatures.  I deconstructed the interior and added grunge board to the center.  I glued the grunge board (shown under the book cover) in place using a strong glue.  I then set it aside to dry.

When I thought it had dried, I measured the width of the grunge board

and divided it

into four lines where holes would be poked to hold each signature.  Before that could happen, though, the edges needed to be trimmed and glued in place.  More on this very soon, I hope.

Thanks for dropping by today.  Sorry I have nothing finished and prepared.  However, thanks so much for stopping by, anyway.

 

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.

A gift that went awry, part II

If you missed yesterday's post (part 1 of this story), you can see it by clicking here.

When I finished assembling the pages for the book I was making for Krisha,

I took these two photos.

Then panic set in, because I couldn't find any more photos.  None, zip, zilch.  And the book was already in Krisha's hands.  How would I be able to show all I did over the course of about three weeks?  Then something wonderful happened.  I took some photos of a sunrise (we all know what those are for).  When I was taking them off my SD card, I realized I had never removed the rest of the ones I took for this book.

So, dear friends, here is the rest of the story:

This is probably the third time in my life I've pinned anything!  Will wonders ever cease to exist.

The completed front cover to Krisha's book when finished.  Since I've already shown the pages individually, I'll let you peruse them at your own pace.

Inside front and page 1.

Pages 2 and 3.

Pages 4 and 5.

 Pages 6 and 7.

Page 8 and inside back cover.

Hand stamped heart using Bleubeard's and my signature stamps, colored with handmade shimmering mists, and sprigs of rosemary from my garden.

For the outside back (shown before assembly) I stacked hand dyed and commercial fabric over misted tyvek.

After reviewing the photos, I realized I didn't show how the book went together.

Those brown pieces at the top of each page like the one shown above, are used to hold the pages together.  Each piece was a different size, so sandwiching the two "pages" together was a nightmare of my own doing.  But, the idea was, to cut heavy cardstock (I used 110 lb white) to just slightly smaller than the size of the fabric, then add about an inch and a half to the top.  That top area was then scored and painted on both sides.

The cardstock is used so the pages will stand on their own and are sandwiched between two of the finished pages.  You sew the cardstock to one fabric piece, then the other fabric piece.  That comprises two pages.  What you see above are two pages.  When I add another assembly (two more fabric pages sewn back to back), I overlapped the brown areas and sewed them together.  In other words, those brown areas were made up the gutter.

Did I lose you?  Once the assembly is complete (4 pages), I added fabric to both sides that covered the brown I so carefully painted.

At the risk of being redundantly redundant, you can see an example which I showed in the second photo of this post.  (See how neither of the "signatures" and gutters were the same size?)

My big problem is, and Ruth Rae's instructions never addressed it, that half the pages are upside down when you flip through the book.  You have to turn the book around to see the "backs" of each page, or otherwise stand on your head.

I hope you enjoyed this two day adventure of how I made this book.  If any one can tell me what I did wrong, I'm open to any and all options and suggestions.  And if you own Layered, Tattered, and Stitched by Ruth Rae, the name of the project is called (and this is her spelling, not mine) "Ancestory Album."  Maybe you'll see something I didn't.
 

Kathy's visual journal: the big reveal

Every other Sunday I play in the Craft Barn Quotes and Lyrics challenge.  I like to finish and post my piece before I go to bed Sunday morning.  It makes my days and nights more similar to most of my International readers and followers, and less like my real time.  But this week, it's after 4:00 pm at the Craft Barn (and after 10:00 am my time) and there is no new challenge.  It's fairly obvious I won't be making the Craft Barn challenge today, so I quickly finished uploading scans of my friend's scrappy visual journal to my blog.  At least I have something to show this Sunday.

As promised, here are the pages I sewed for my friend Kathy's visual journal.  You can see the cover here and how I made it here.

Be warned!  This is a very, very, very, very long post.  It took forever to scan the book and even longer (or so it seemed) to upload the scans.

For those who missed it before, here is the outside front cover, 

and the inside front cover.  The front has a place to hold writing instruments.  It is backed with some baby wipes Kathy and I used when I spent several days at her place last year.  I even sewed all the wipes together while I was at her home.

It's amazing how different the colors look when photographed than when scanned.

Page 1 of Signature 1.

Pages 2 and 3.  The menu on Page 3 lifts so you can write hidden messages.

Pages 4 and 5.  Page 5 postcard can be lifted to write on the back.

Pages 6 and 7.

Pages 8 and 9.

Pages 10 and 11.

Pages 12 and 13.  There's a pocket on page 13 and I've included a tag in it.

Pages 14 and 15.

I seem to have cut off the bottom of page 16.  Page 17 has an envelope pocket.

Pages 18 and 19.

Page 19 detail.

Pages 20 and 21.

Pages 22 and 23.

Pages 24 and 25.

Pages 26 and 27.

Pages 28 and 29.

Pages 30 and 31.

Pages 32 and 33.

Pages 34 and 35.

Pages 36 (lopsided) and 37. 

Pages 38 and 39.
 

Pages 40 and 41.

Pages 42 and 43.  Die cuts were all made last year at Kathy's using her machine.

Pages 44 and 45.

Pages 46 and 47.

Pages 48 and 49.

Pages 50 and 51.

Page 52, the last page of the first section, and Page 53, or Page 1 of the second section, or signature.  I had actually intended these signatures be turned around, but I got them aligned wrong when I was adding the signatures to the book.

Pages 54 and 55.

Pages 56 and 57.

Pages 58 and 59.

Pages 60 and 61.

Pages 62 and 63.

Pages 64 and 65.

Pages 66 and 67.

Pages 68 and 69.

Pages 70 and 71.

Pages 72 and 73.

Pages74 and 75.

Pages 76 and 77, which is the center spread for the second set of signatures.

Pages 78 and 79.

Pages 80 and 81.

Pages 82 and 83.  Don't you just love Bleubeard's personal touches?

Pages 84 and 85.

Pages 86 and 87.

 Pages 88 and 89.

Pages 90 and 91.

Pages 92 and 93.

Pages 94 and 95.

Pages 96 and 97.  Isn't that an adorable bunny picture?

Pages 98 and 99.

And because I messed up on the page numbers count early in the scanning process, here is Page 100 (not 98) and the inside back cover.  I only realized my mistake as I was uploading these pages.

Again, this shows the sewn baby wipes Kathy and I used at a get-together last year.  And the pocket, which will hold notes, ephemera, etc., is some of the oatmeal resist fabric I made last week.

And finally, a closer look at the inside back cover, 

as well as one last look at the outside back cover.

I tried to keep my words to a minimum this time.  If you have ANY QUESTIONS about any of the pages, please leave them in the comments.  I will get back to you on YOUR BLOG, because I don't expect you to have to return here to see the answer.

Thanks for visiting and looking over these pages.  I hope you found a few that you enjoyed.