A Birthday Book!

Welcome to Magpieheaven where I've been very busy crafting a special birthday card for my mum. It's not so much a birthday card - more a birthday book, so apologies for another photo-full post! Over at 'A Vintage Journey' the challenge this fortnight is to 'Use Every Stamp in the Set'. For this little 'book' I used all the stamps on PaperArtsy's LPC 027 plus stamps from other sets too, so I should like to enter this for Challenge! Can you spot the image from LPC027 peeping around the corner of the front cover?

Apart from admiring Tim Holtz's Vintage style, I think that his crafting techniques and Lynne Perrella's stamp creations are a great combination. Inspired by Liesbeth Fidder when she was a GD at PaperArtsy a while back, I rediscovered those Tim techniques that had so bowled me over when I started crafting a couple of years ago. I love the effects that can be achieved using Tim Holtz's Distress Inks and his spritzing and misting techniques along with ordinary, thin household bleach - Liesbeth's suggestion. I always wonder about the history of these mysterious and characterful Lynne Perrella ladies and whether Lynne weaves stories around them as I do! This lady from LP027 looks like she might have quite a formidable wit to me: she certainly makes a strong focal image!  Another image from LP027 makes an appearance too: the boot filled with pens.

After folding a piece of A4 card into three equal sections in a concertina shape, I made my panels to go inside, using Distress Inks (Evergreen Bough, Broken China, Peacock Feathers and Bundled Sage)  swiped across my craft mat, spritzed and dried with a heat tool. I really love to look closely at the marbled effects that simply swiping card across misted Distress Inks achieves!Tim Holtz - you're a Genius! I stamped over them in Jet black Stazon before 'painting' highlights in Bleach.

I used the Flourish stencil from Prima with Wendy Vecchi Cobalt Archival for a subtle background touch.

I really enjoyed using the bleach on this one! To me it seemed to create the impression of eery moonlight! This figure always makes me think of one of Shakespeare's feisty heroines who dresses in boy's clothes like Rosalind or Viola.

In the background of this one, I used the bleach to create the impression of clouds billowing up behind the Kremlin! I edged my panels with some Frantage too - Shabby Blue and Aged Aqua. The lady peeping out below the focal image is from LP027 too so now I've used the whole set.

The next step was to fix my panels and add some embellishment. Inspired by Patty Sczymkowicz, I did some vegetable dyeing of lace, using Red Cabbage and Red Onions and added this to enhance the Vintage look.

Red Onions give a lovely warm reddish brown to lace and fabrics and the cabbage can create anything from palest lavender to deep purple.

Now for the cover! I decided this time to make a book-like cover. I used some die-cut card, painted with Tango and Yellow Submarine PaperArtsy Frescos and some circles made by dipping a lid into pools of Fresco paint. These little tiles cut from a Tim Holtz Trellis die were inspired by Lin Brown's technique, which she taught a few weeks ago in a Craft Barn class, the sentiment is from a PaperArtsy Hot Pick.

 There was one last embellishment to add now that the book was painted in shades of blue using Frescos in Antarctic, Beach Hut, Mermaid and Inky Pool...

folded and tied with seam binding; had a little Shrink Plastic heart with wings; some butterflies!

and Tando Creative chipboard pieces, painted, crackled and stamped...

I made two Shrink Plastic versions of this image, cutting carefully around the edge before heating with the heat tool. It's stamped in Versafine Onyx Black onto Mermaid Fresco, so that if the 'charm' flips, the reverse side will be exactly the same. I edged it with Sapphire Treasure Gold.

It's fixed under a tiny leaf inside the first page .

 I  will eventually write a birthday message on one of these patterned pages.

These lovely distressed papers from The House of Zandra go on the reverse side of the images and I used Tim's edging tool to distress the sides with Peacock Feathers and Walnut Stain.

The sentiment is from Lin Brown's Eclectica flower sentiments...

stamped onto stacked paper and card.

'We do not remember days, we remember moments'. I wonder what moments these ladies are reflecting on in their colourful lives so different from our own? Thank you so much if you've stayed the course for all these pictures! May your week be full of happy moments, and I hope that my Mum's 85th birthday on the 3rd July will be one for her to remember happily too!