A Heart-Shaped Book of Love

I've been dreaming of this project for months and I'm so smitten with how it came out.

Perusing Instagram one day I spied a medieval painting with a young man holding a heart shaped book and I KNEW I wanted to make my own.

Apparently heart shaped books were quite popular during the late Middle Ages. A quick search and you'll find loads of beautiful antique examples. 

For my book, I've used a Book Of Love Heart Mini Album and paper from Graphic 45's Flower Shoppe (one of my favaourite collections ever) to embellish the outside, with a chopped up a  Rose Border for embellishment.

Inside I've covered each spread with music paper, and painted the pages with symbols associated with love and love magic.

A bit of advice: be sure that your layout is dry before moving on to the next. I had a couple of pages so in love they wanted to stick together and not be unstuck.

I added some stamped elements on a few pages and applied gold embossing powder. I think it gives a nice nod to the gilded illumination in old manuscripts.

There's runes and symbols and all sorts of love elements in my magic little book, but don't feel bound by my example. You could make a book based on self love.... or not about love in the least!

The petite size of this book make it wonderful for exploring and experimenting. With just 7 layouts to complete, it's not an overwhelming commitment. AND the chippy pages are pretty great at accepting an enthusiastic application of mixed media. 

Want to see how I put this heart-shaped book of love together? Great! I've made a video to guide you though the process. Pop over HERE to see it.

Here are all the bits I used to make this book

Book Of Love Heart Mini Album

Rose Border

Foam Stamps

music paper

scrapbook paper (Graphic 45's Flower Shoppe)

glue

hockey tape (cloth type)

acrylic paint

gold embossing powder

Here's hoping you too are filled with love and magic.

Free Photo Friday

Once a week I share an old timey photo from my personal collection. Feel free to use them in your mess making, art and crafting.

The images are not polished and left in their grungy, smudged and speckled glory. Just how I like 'em! Without further ado... 

Do NOT sell, give, or distribute the images as your own, digitally or printed, alone or as part of a collection, collage sheet or group. BUT DO absolutely make stuff with them and sell the stuff you make. If you share your project, a link is appreciated.

Violators will be turned into toads, given warts, all the bad stuff... I mean it... It won't be pretty. 

A tiny tin and a bossy bird

There were some pretty great clearance deals at the craft shop last weekend. I grabbed some little tins, about half the size of an altoid tin, and gussied one of them up the other day.

I covered the tin with Worn Wallpaper papers from Tim Holtz. On the front, a button with a snip of twine and a Tim Holtz - Story Stick

Inside a little fairy, paper flower from Graphic 45, and more buttons. The sentiment is from a vintage children's book (don't worry, it was beyond repair).

I'm hoping that February feels a bit more creatively productive than January (which was about 87 days long!)

Fingers crossed this wee fairy found a bit of inspiration for me in addition to those buttons.

Supplies used for the project:
Half sized tin
Old Buttons
Snipped Words
Twine
Bee Wings Download/Bee Wings Transparency Half Sheet
Worn Wallpaper, Tim Holtz
Story Stick, Tim Holtz
Paper Dolls, Tim Holtz
Paper Flowers, Graphic 45

And now for the bossy bird.

I wasn't planning on bringing anything that poops in to the house, but here we are...

Someone needed a home for these two (as well as a pretty yellow canary) and our finch hasn't been himself since his buddy died a while ago. I've been trying to introduce them gently this week, worried about my timid lonely fellow being outnumbered.

What you don't see in this pic is Wednesday, my old finch, sitting on their cage shouting "COME OUT! COME OUT! Why are you dummies sitting in that little cage?" Turns out HE is the bossy one. I'm hoping they'll all be fast friends in no time at all.

These two don't have names btw. Any ideas?

Love Fairy Stamps

While I'm not a fan of Valentine's Day (seriously, just love me all the damn time) these little love fairies sprung off of my work table yesterday.

I made a set of six using chipboard Postage Stamp Blanks as a base. I simply painted them white, then applied a slip of coloured music paper for the background.

The fabulous femmes are from my Petite Ladies Collage Sheet and I've given them all Transparent Bee Wings to fairy-fy them.

The little glittery hearts are snipped from paper and then given a healthy application of glitter.

I'm tickled with how this sweet little lady looks like she's going to slap someone with a face full of love.

"Hey! You! Love someone damn it!"

I'd like to think they're slightly insane, shoving love all over the place, often in places it doesn't belong. Let's be honest, love is nuts and this would explain soooo much.

Here's the list o' supplies should you want to make your own:

Postage Stamp Blanks

Petite Ladies Collage Sheet 

Transparent Bee Wings (Bee Wing download available here)

Old paper/music sheets

Acrylic Paint

Paper hearts

Glitter

Glue

Foam adhesive squares

Free Photo Friday

Once a week I share an old timey photo from my personal collection. Feel free to use them in your mess making, art and crafting.

The images are not polished and left in their grungy, smudged and speckled glory. Just how I like 'em! Without further ado... 

Do NOT sell, give, or distribute the images as your own, digitally or printed, alone or as part of a collection, collage sheet or group. BUT DO absolutely make stuff with them and sell the stuff you make. If you share your project, a link is appreciated.

Violators will be turned into toads, given warts, all the bad stuff... I mean it... It won't be pretty. 

Saturday Morning TV with Pee Wee's Playhouse

I am a child of the 80's. I totes remember having to get my butt off the couch to change channels and adjust the volume. I remember the glory of Saturday morning cartoons. As soon as I saw the Gypsy Soul Altoids TV's I was taken back to those days.

My absolute favorite of all that Saturday morning goodness was Pee Wee's Playhouse. Fellow design team member, Connie Little created an amazing room box of the Playhouse set a while ago and I've been desperate to make my own Pee Wee something ever since. THIS was the perfect opportunity.

Assembly was super simple and yet I somehow managed to mangle almost every step. It was one of those days when everything I touched turned to soup... and yet, even on a craptastic day, it's still awesome, right?! If you're having your own soup day, I have a walk-through with some pointers to avoid all of my mistakes. Pop over HERE for the video.

Don't like Pee Wee? I think you're crazy but you can totally make one of these cute TV's for your favorite show. Just grab a background shot, then add a cutout of your favourite character to add as a focal point. Bewitched is next on my list! Then, maybe, Murder She Wrote. Or how about Golden Girls?! 20 Minute Workout perhaps.

Of course you should use materials suited to the show theme you want to create, but for this particular Pee Wee version here are the supplies I used:

Altoids TV Standard

Altoid Tin

Red, black, white, yellow acrylic paints

Silver and red fine glitter

Glossy Accents

Glue (white, instant)

Background image, foreground character

Adhesive foam squares

Celestial Matchbook Book Box

A dreamy little faux book box for you today.

For this project I took a Matchbox Sized Faux Book Box, and embellished it with stash scraps from the ALCHEMY and COSMOS papers from Stamperia

Working on small projects like this are a wonderful way to use up little leftover bits. It's also a fun exercise to use up stash bits that share a theme. I love stars and moons and all things celestial, so it was nice to collect those little bits and create something new.

Inside I added brass stars, a vial of starry tinsel, and loads of moony imagery all smooshed up together.

I don't have a full tutorial for this project, but I can offer a few tips to help you along.

• try using hockey tape to hinge the lid of the Matchbox Sized Faux Book Box This fabric tape works really, really well for books and bendy foldy parts in mixed media projects

• avoid adding too many embellishments to the inside of the spine, it will impede closing the box

• glue a length of ribbon to the front and back of the cover before covering with paper. It's a super simple closure for your book box.

Perhaps the most important tip I can offer is this: make something that celebrates YOUR interests. While I'm mad for stars and magic and moons, don't shy away from making something that honors your love of unicorns, or gardening, or jelly beans! Explore whatever tugs at your heart, no matter how kooky it might be.

All that said, here are the supplies used in this particular piece:

Matchbox Sized Faux Book Box
Cloth hockey tape
Ribbon
ALCHEMY and COSMOS Stamperia papers
Glue
Glass vial
Artifact Labels
Idea-ology - Tim Holtz - Story Stick
Tinsel stars
Glitter
Stamp pad