Envelope book

CCSwaps is running an envelope book swap, so I thought I'd give this a try. My book consists of 8 envelopes. The front of the first envelope and the flap of the last envelope is what you see on the right side; it becomes the front cover of the book. I inserted an eyelet in the flap and then used gold ribbon to create the tie for the book. I covered the back of that first envelope with a beautiful napkin given to me by my friend Margaret. I found the saying in some books I've had forever... "If you can imagine it, you can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can become it." I cut it out and mounted it onto a piece of heavy gold cardstock before attaching it to the cover of the book.

This is a view of the front of the envelope book opened. Each of the 8 envelopes used to create the book contains an insert with a saying that is pertinent to the word that is stamped on the envelope. The envelopes are attached to each other using the flaps. The book that is created is similar to an accordion book.

This is a view of the back of the envelope book opened up. I attached a different piece of decorative scrapbook paper to each of seven of the envelopes. I then sponged antique linen distress ink around the edges of each.

Envelopes 1 and 2 are shown here. As with all the rest of the envelopes in the book, I stamped a word and flourishes in inks that coordinated with the inserts created for each envelope.

Inserts for envelopes 1 and 2 were run through the cuttlebug.

For Dream I ran an ink pad across the top to color the raised portions of the embossing. I added a hot glue embellishment and the preprinted wording.

For Wonder I added a strip of decorative vellum down the right side; you can't see it in this picture, but there are images of white flowers in the vellum. Preprinted wording was attached on top of the vellum piece.

Envelopes 3 and 4.... Imagine and Explore

Inserts for envelopes 3 and 4 were both run through the cuttlebug for texture.

The card for Imagine, on the left, was a special cardstock that is a different color on each side. Once it is run through the cuttlebug I sand it to reveal the color that is on the other side of the cardstock. Once that was done I just added the preprinted words.

After running the Explore card through the cuttlebug I swiped a gold ink pad across the surface. Then I added a small piece of green vellum at the top left, a ribbon down the left side, and a clay embellishment.

Envelopes 5 and 6 are Believe and Love.

The inserts for envelopes 5 and 6....

Both were cut from handmade paper that I had purchased at a stamp convention.

For Believe I ripped a piece of matching mulberry paper and attached using eyelets. I then ran some fibers through the eyelets. I stamped some sayings on purple vellum and attached to the card.

For Love I stamped the saying onto a square of cardstock, cut with decorative scissors and attached with heart shaped fasteners. I wrapped pink ribbon around 2 sides of the card and attached with a larger heart fastener.

And the final 2 envelopes in the book...

Play and Create.

These are the inserts for envelopes 7 and 8.... Play and Create.

For Play, I ran the cardstock through the cuttlebug, attached a piece of decorative vellum that I had stamped on, added a butterfly created with the cuttlebug, and found an appropriate phrase in my stash to add to the bottom right.

For Create, I used some of my stamps and then cut a strip of decorative glossy cardstock and a ribbon to the left side.

Dive journal for Terri

Oh goody, another project...and I get to use my new Bind It All!!!
When Terri, our daughter (well technically she's really my step-daughter, but what does that matter...I love her), was with us over the Christmas Holiday she asked if I could make her a couple of dive journals. She is a big time scuba diver, both for fun and professionally, and she wanted one journal for her personal use and one for her professional use. Sounded like a fun thing to do. This is Terri's personal journal. Using alcohol inks, I swiped the inks across a piece of glossy cardstock. I used the cardstock to cover both the front and back covers of the journal.

And here is the finished journal, well, at least the front cover. The letters are Tim Holtz grungeboard that have been painted with acrylics. 'Scuba Goddess' is Terri's diving nickname, so why not use it on the cover!! It was a little tricky getting all those letters on the 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 cover, but it worked.


Lucky for me my friend, Maggi, came to the rescue with 3/4" o wires so that I could bind the book and ship it off to Terri. I only had very large and small o wires. I'm still a Bind It All novice and need more practice. The binding turned out okay, and Terri won't have a problem with the journal, but it's not perfect....maybe I'm the only one who will notice!



This is the inside of the front cover and the front of the intro page. I just had to use some of my stamps! And that is Terri's business card in the center of the front cover.
Dive for Food??? Oh yes, she does hunt lobsters so I couldn't resist the lobster sign when I found it on the internet.
For the inside of the front and back covers I used some decorative cardstock that I've had in my stash for years. You may not be able to tell in this picture, but the paper is very sparkly. I attached it to a cardboard base with double sided tape; I hope it holds up well and doesn't peel away from the base.


This is the back of the intro page and the first page of journaling. All the pictures I used in Terri's journal are either from the internet, from her friend Doug's website or blog, or from a CD Terri gave me some time ago that contains pictures her friend Joe had taken underwater. I hope her friends don't mind that I've used their pictures for her journal.
After emailing back and forth several times Terri gave me the format for the journal pages. There is some information she always documents with her personal dives and then she needed some blank lines for other information she wanted to record.


These are the second and third journaling pages. There are 38 double sided pages in the book. Each side of the page is set up for Terri to journal 1 day, and each day is split into 2 dives. I used 4 different headings throughout the journal pages: Diving is my Passion (that's Terri in a nutshell), Live! Love! Dive!, Diving...what life is all about, and Live Life! Go Diving!

Here is the inside of the back cover. On the left are 6 photo sleeves for Terri to use if she or one of her dive buddies captures some spectacular pictures. On the right are some underwater photos.

Well Terri, I sure hope you like it and that it works for you! I'll be taking this to the post office in a day or two.

IT Girl for Karen

Karen is the 'IT GIRL' on Art Ventures for the month of March. I know, I'm ahead of schedule, but when an idea hits it is best for me to go with the flow. Karen's theme is shrines. Well, I learned how to create shrines with clay tiles from Laurie Mika back in October....so, why not?
I started with a small wood frame (5 x 5) that I found at Michael's. I painted it with gold acrylic paint so that any spaces between clay or glass tiles would be gold, and not brown wood.



I had a stash of white clay tiles that I made a month or two ago, and had already painted them with a base coat of gold. I needed to make the roof, since I was thinking 'bird house' and some additional decorative tiles. I got out a package of black sculpey for those. After cutting out the roof and some additional tiles, I either stamped into them to get texture or added some 'gems'; then I rubbed perfect pearls interference colors onto the clay before baking. When the black tiles were ready I looked through my white tiles and some other glass tiles that I had on hand, and proceeded to create an arrangement on the wood frame. Pretty soon I had what I felt was a good coverage on the shrine.

After deciding which of my white clay tiles would fit best on the shrine I painted them with acrylic paint. I knew I wanted purple, but it took several attempts to get the proper green/blue color I was looking for. And once again I checked the arrangement of the tiles before gluing them in place. I also applied matte varnish to all the clay tiles before gluing them in place.

Once I determined where the tiles should be placed I glued them down with Weldbond. There was a very small open space just below the roof line on the left and the right. I had some small glass beads that fit perfectly in that space. First I placed some Diamond Glaze in the space and then using a toothpick placed the beads down one at a time.

Here's a picture of the finished shrine. The sunlight is casting a shadow on the inside left of the frame.

In the opening I had taken my HeidiSwap mask of a bird and tree branch, placed them on a script background, and sponged on dusty concord distress ink. The sunlight in this photo gives the background a much lighter appearance than it really is.

I couldn't decide whether to place the small blackbird charm on the inside left or right of the frame, or to place it on the top of the frame just to the right or left of the roof line. I decided I liked it best where it is.

Here's another view of the finished shrine. Since the sunlight was creating shadows I wanted to take a couple of shots so that the entire shrine could be seen.

I hope that Karen likes it. And I hope that I can package it up well enough so that it makes it to her without any damage.

Altered CD

I just posted a swap on the CCSwaps group asking members to alter a CD. I had just the right stamp to use for this project. I stamped my spinner card onto watercolor paper and painted with many of my H2O watercolors. I ran it through my xyron to laminate it to make it sturdier. I didn't have a spinner in my stash so my wonderful husband helped to create the pointer/spinner you see on this project. I covered the CD with some cardstock that was painted with blue watercolors. Before attaching the spinner card to the covered CD, I used my cuttlebug and the alphabet dies I have to punch the letters I placed along the outer edge of the CD. I did place some foam tape under the spinner card before attaching to the CD to give the project some depth. This swap doesn't close until the end of January so I don't know who will be receiving this altered CD.

IT Girl for Pea

February is Pea's turn to be the IT Girl in the ART Ventures group.
I had purchased some wood letters spelling ART months ago; I had even forgotten I had them! Pea requested bold and funky colors with black and white checkerboard. I drew the checkerboards using pencil after painting all the letters with gesso. I chose 3 bold colors and mixed them up amongst the 3 letters; then I painted the checkerboard. I stamped art-related sayings on each using black stazon ink, but they still needed something else to complete them. I found some black and silver cording in my stash, so I used red line tape to adhere the cording around the edges of each letter.

GIVE ME AN 'A'!!!!!


I stamped "art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time". I wasn't sure if stamping these sayings on the wood letters would work, but I was glad it did. They needed something and art sayings seemed to be an appropriate thing to add.



GIVE ME AN 'R'!!!!

On the R, I stamped "the ability to play is essential to a creative artist".

GIVE ME A 'T'!!!!

The 'art' saying used on the T is "fill your paper with the breathings of your heart".

Pauline's IT girl ... Woman booklet

The Art Ventures group has an IT GIRL swap. For the month of January Pauline is IT. She chooses a theme and the rest of us playing in this swap create an item on that theme. Some time ago I had purchased these blank matchbooks so I decided to use one to make Pauline a 'Woman booklet'. There are 6 page in the booklet... here's what I did with it.....

Here is the finished matchbook with the cover closed. I attached decorative paper to the outside of the booklet. Pauline likes purple so that became my primary color throughout the booklet.

After applying 2 colors of distress inks, using the blending foam pads, I stamped images of women on the cover and each of the page fronts.

On the backs of each page I placed a quote relevant to women. I typed them up and printed them on purple vellum.

Special Dates File

Thanks to Chris Bennett, a fellow stamper on the CCSwaps group, I created several of these special date files to give as gifts to friends. I received one from Chris in the 2007 '12 Days of Christmas Swap'. This wonderful folder is for organizing all those special dates (birthdays, anniversaries, etc) that you want to remember throughout the year. I had given 4 of them away for Christmas 2008 and had requests to make more. Here are 7 of the 8 I created recently. One is missing because I gave it to my Best Friend, Bert, just yesterday for her Birthday!!

Here's the inside of one of the files. There is a tab attached to each of 12 pockets; the tab is marked with the month. There are 2 additional pockets in the front and the back for holding blank cards. Each pocket is made from one half of a sealed invitation size envelope. You can't see in these pictures, but I colored and stamped along the edges of the envelopes. The middle sections of the envelopes doesn't show since that is where you attach each of the envelopes to one another.

Here's the inside of another file. I've included 90 cards to fill in for the birthdates, anniversaries, etc that the recipient of this file will be able to use. The unused cards can be stored in the front and back pocket until the owner needs to fill one out. The card is preprinted with name, address, event, and date.