Have Book Will Travel (posted by Judith)

Oh dear, the time just flies, I'm last to post as per usual, I'm afraid. I have had a very hectic few weeks, and had almost made up my mind not to take part in this particular challenge. However, a trip to the Happy Stampers Show a couple of weeks ago changed my mind, as I bought some fabulous stamps, that enabled me to finish this project in just the way that I wanted to.

My poor Husband broke his collarbone recently; he has to take things easy and be careful. I decided to make a Father's Day gift for him with this project. Because of the book-like nature of the card, I decided very early on to use the Tim Holtz bookplate stamps. It's not going to be very often that I can use these, and this seemed like an ideal opportunity. I chose a theme of olive green, blue and brown for the project.

The front cover sets the colour theme straight away. I have added a fabulous steampunk style butterfly from a relatively new company called Indigo Blu, their stamps are just so useful, and I really like them.
For the inside covers, I wanted my book to have the feel of lined Italian papers, I bought the perfect stamp at HSNW from a company called Stamp Camp. I coloured some white card with my Distress Inks, then brayered the stamp with Versafine Ink. These were the inside covers before I had added anything else;

I had to stamp an extra piece on the bottom, but most of that would be hidden once the project was finished.
My box section used the smaller bookplate stamp for the front, in an olive green colour this time. I had to trim the stamped images each time I used them, but only slightly, they worked out realyy well for this project. For the sides of the box, and the spine of the book, I chose to use Tim Holtz tissue tape, and coloured it with Distress Ink. It was just the right thickness.

I used a bookplate shaped Nestability to cut the window in my box, keeping in with the book theme. I had planned to put a large bag of Galaxy Minstrels in the box for my OH, but the bag is way too big, even folded over or scrunched up! I will just put a plastic bag inside the box, and tip as many as I can in there. I have already added an acetate window to the box, but I don't want melted chocolate inside the box!
I added a pocket to the left side of the inside, using Kraft card, second stamping a lovely crackle stamp from Indigo Blu. I have added more Indigo Blu stamped pieces, and an Ideology tag to the pocket, which I have painted with Guacamole Fresco Finish paint, and then rubbed off the excess. The green paint then just goes into the lettering.

I made a tag to go inside the pocket, using another Indigo Blu stamp with Italian script and a beautiful building. I stamped this onto Kraft card, after colouring the card slightly with Distress Inks. I added a bit more of the crackle stamp, and some tissue tape.

I am also adding a book token from a certain bookstore so that my OH can go and buy himself a book or two and maybe relax a bit. He has come to enjoy reading in the last couple of years. He needs to slow down, and how better than with a good book?

My final picture shows the back cover, where I have used the bigger bookplate stamp again, the bookplate Nesties, and a great stamp from The Artistic Stamper. (The 'Travel' stamp on the front is from the same set).

So there you have it, fingers crossed that he likes it! He doesn't generally check this blog out, so I don't think that he will spot his gift, as long as I hide the actual card well at home. Thanks to Debbie Dolphin for such a great project, and to Jo, for choosing it for us.

Now, onto our next project!!! I chose this project a few weeks ago, so we have been thinking about it for a little while. I was very conscious that we were falling behind in our magazines again, so I skipped up to the May edition of Craft Stamper, but gave the girls a bit of a twist. I chose Rachel Jackson's Designer Palette on page 78. The colours are Cream, Latte and Bordeaux. However, I told the girls that I was dipping back in time to make a project in one of the magazines that we had skipped, using those colours but I wasn't going to tell them which project in advance. They were welcome to do the same. It would be amazing if any of us picked the same project, wouldn't it?

I know that one or two of the girls are definitely planning to show you sneak peeks this month, remember those? We used to do those when we weren't so busy, those were the days. Anyway, look out for some crafty snippets coming your way. Thank you for sticking to the end, if you are still reading this, Judith xx