Playing with Gerri

Gerri had this fabulous idea of inviting people to play with her - and this is how it went: I sent Gerri my address and she sent me a 'goodie bag' containing the most interesting and inspiring bits and pieces. The challenge was to create one project using 4 to 5 bits from Gerri's goodie bag and we are allowed to use whatever else we think would be useful. When I saw all the different elements, I had immediately two/three projects in my head. So far I've had only time to create two but the third one will come - promise! (lol)
My first project was the decoration of a book

I loved the way it all came together so quickly. The elements which came from Gerri are the wonderfully old musical note paper, the white fibre, ribbon, the ever so sweet image, the image corner, paper trellis and lots of little metal flowers. My contribution to it was stamping on the musical note paper (Kaisercraft stamp with VersaMagic ink), paper circles underneath the flowers and for the stamped sentiment (stamp: Lily of the Valley), bow and leafy ribbon and all the little bling and the book!

The second project turned out rather different

 

... an asian themed card using textured papertowel, embossed light card, paper rings and a leaf from Gerri. I created the card using a square textured white card and adding some bling, asian coin, butterfly and an image from The Sum of All Crafts.

Gerri collects all the creations and will display them on her blog later this month. This is so exciting and I cannot wait to see what everybody has created ! Thank you Gerri for the challenge, this was such a brilliant idea! Petra.

Experimental Frog Leap

with Gingersnap Creations for Once In A Blue Moon challenge: Things That Leap ... on Leap Day or all year round (lol)
Aren't they sweet ... and maybe a little bit creepy .... but they seem to be full of enthusiasm and determination to get the golden ball out of the pond, well, the pretend pond!
This is quite an old book I 'rescued' from a dump. The paper is wonderfully soft, mellow and aged and it was a joy to work with it. To alter the book I started cutting circles by hand creating a small basin just deep enough for the golden pearl/ball. The next step was to glue the pages together. Because I wanted the book to look like a book I did not glue the sides of the book but only the individual pages
For creating the leap scene I inked the background and surface with various distress inks and stamped the muslin pattern from Lost Coast Design. I cut out the frogs from a clipart image and glued it to the page. The big bolt letters are Sizzix diecuts also stamped with the muslin pattern.

Come and leap with us over at Gingersnap Creations, this is so much fun! Petra.

The Raven

It is Edgar Allan Poe month at Gingersnap Creations ....
What would such a month be without The Raven?
I created an altered book page with the little help of a collage sheet by Plush Possum Studio and Artistic Outpost stamps. The text page is printed on slightly textured off-white paper while Poe's image is printed on transparency and then layered onto the text page. For one of the ravens at the top and the one in the middle I did some fussy cutting. The transparency is attached by staples and ravens. The eye ring around Poe's eye is a l eftover from some inking experiment! The edges of the text page and the transparency are distressed with Vintage Photo distress ink. ..... Oh, and of course, the page is signed by Poe ... how cool is this? (lol)

Check out the Gingersnap blog for the current Random Redhead challenge. You will see some absolutely brilliant raven creations. Petra.

Also linked to: Our Creative Corner - Totally Transparent

Birdsong

I created this book for the last Art 'n' Soul challenge: GOTHIC ARCHES with a MUSIC/MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS/ANYTHING MUSIC OR SONG RELATED theme. We had to make three arches with front and back decorated. I chose birds and birdsong as my musical theme

The book pages are connected at the top with some string. The edge of every page is also lined with string to give it some definition. These are the plain individual pages of the booklet

All patterend paper is from The Girl's Paperie, stamps are Stempelglede, Red Lead PaperWorks, Obsession Impressions, Darcies and 7Gypsies.

Petra.

Halloween Sisters

Halloween is not something we would naturally celebrate, and although quite a few children are living nearby, we had only once little visitors coming to our door within the last 7 years. Halloween approaching fast I thought I give it a go with a Halloween project. Always wanting to alter a book I combined Elina's Spring-themed Altered Book with Niche with Nancy's Altered Book Cover ... and could also not resist to use Ali's ribbon tabs.
The first step was to find a book which I would be willing to alter. I must admit I had never done it before because it feels almost like a sacrilege ... but I took the challenge and I loved the process! I found a little book in one of the charity shops which had just the right size and volume for this project. I turned the Spring theme into Halloween ... otherwise I tried to follow the excellent tutorials from Elina and Nancy
The inside pages are cut with circle cutters of various sizes from Creative Memories. This was an enjoyable process and I have now lots of printed circles for new projects (lol)
All images used are from the Graphics Fairy. Karen's Halloween images are amazing!
Thanks to Elina's and Nancy's clear descriptions the project was quite plain sailing apart from me being slightly impatient and removing the greaseproof paper too early from the book which unfortunately took off some of the glue
and the edges look a bit untidy. I now know for the next time! Happy crafting, Petra.