Altered book project 2011

I hope everyone had a good Christmas.  The week in between Christmas and New Year is mostly a bit quiet so there's ample time to have a bit of a play around in the basement.
 
I've put together my altered book for 2011 and as promised I've taken some pictures with my new camera which Santa brought me, to show you how I did it.

I've selected a hardback book hoping this will be good and rigid.  It's an old maths book from the recycling centre so I don't think it'll be missed.

I worked out that if I add an entry to my new journal every second Saturday,  I would need to divide my book into 27 sections all held together with paper clips. (I included the last Saturday of the year which is December 31st)  This gives me 27 double page spreads.  My last couple of altered books have only used a single page per entry so I wanted to use a double page for a change. More artwork potential.



To prepare my book for 1st January, I took the first two sections and glued the pages together with gel medium.  I remember doing this for the first time and keeping the book flat on the desk as I did this then realized I couldn't close the book when I'd finished.  Don't make that mistake.  Stick the pages together by pressing them towards the middle so you can close the book after.

When the glue had dried, I gessoed the pages to prepare them for painting on later.



So there we are, book prepared. On Saturday the 1st January I'll be posting the first double page spread and if you want to join in you're more than welcome to do so.  



Happy Christmas

I would like to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas.

2011 Altered book project.

Over the past year I've really enjoyed the two altered book projects I've been doing for Scrap à la Fraise and The Life Path Challenge with Coleen and even though I've still got a couple of pages to finish in both books, I've decided to start a brand new one for 2011. My very good friend Lena will be joining me in this new bi-weekly venture and I'm hoping some of you will too. 

We'll start it on the 1st of January and continue on every 15 days which will give us 26 pages in total (which includes the extra 6 days on the end of december).  So if the first page will be the 1st the second on 15th and the third on 30th and so on.  I have to check the dates on my new calendar just to be sure.

I'll be preparing my altered book next week after christmas and I'll post here how I do it in case anyone else wants to do the same. 

I may add a link at the bottom of my book posts so anyone who wants to join in can add their page to the link too.  This is in no way a challenge and I'm not intending it to be a challenge but instead a bit of fun where hopefully you'll find some inspiration and new ideas along the way and at the end of 2011 have a wonderful altered book/art journal  to look back in. 

Last Inchy challenge.

It's been forever since I made an inchy and this week it's the last ever inchy challenge on Inchy by Inch. I haven't participated in a long time but I felt compelled to enter an inchy for this last time to show my support for Fiona.

Creative Inspirations challenge 49

These are my cards for Creative Inspirations challenge 49 (anything goes - Christmas).  I had originally decided to make about 20 of these cards as I love the stamp but when it came to it, the image is so small and detailed, it took ages to colour one so I ended up only making 10. That in itself was quite labour intensive so next year I'll know to stick to something simpler for my bulk card making.

The new challenge is sponsored by Stamp and Create and Soft Pencil.  It will run until the 30th December to give everyone plenty of time to enter.

Here comes Santa.

This week on Wednesday Stampers, Patty is asking us to create something using red and white as inspiration.  Ok so it's a bit obvious, but I couldn't resist painting Santa for my journal.

The background stamps are from My Stamp Box.

On the 4th day of Christmas I made........

It's the 4th day of the 12 days of Christmas at My Stamp Box and my turn to present a project.

I've made 4 little favour boxes just big enough to hold a few chocolates. The template I found on the website at Stampington and Co. 

To see the project in full go to the My Stamp Box site  and don't forget to follow us for the rest of the 12 days.



Christmas starts here, woo hoo !

Yay, the 1st of December is here which means the 12 days of Christmas have started on My Stamp Box.  We've been working hard to bring you projects and ideas every week day for 12 days.  You'll just have to wait and see which day I'm doing.

I've also completed the latest 2 pages for Scrap a la Fraise in my 2010 journal. Only 3 more pages to do so I'll soon have it finished.  It was my turn to choose the latest prompt and I chose fabrics seeing as I've been working in fabric for a few weeks now.