I've been looking forward to sharing this next project with you. As I was putting it together, I remember that the last time Mary Fish and I had collaborated on a project (back when I was doing weekly challenges, Mary had been our Color Combo Guest Designer), she had told me that if I ever had a great project that I felt like sharing on her blog, the invitation was open to be her Featured Stamper again. I was tickled pink with her offer and was waiting to have something really good to e-mail her. So as I was saying, as I put this project together, I thought this could be something worth sharing with Mary. Being her usual super sweet self, she said she was all over it and agreed to feature this project on her Stampin' Pretty blog!
So that being said, let me tell you all about my mini book. The inspiration behind it was twofold: First, I wanted to use our new fabrics. Have you noticed those in our jam-packed Holidays mini? We now have two new packs of fabrics, and the ones I used are from the Candy Cane Christmas pack. They're perfect for Christmas, but are versatile enough to work all year long, and they coordonate with our new Designer papers, big buttons and all of our current ribbons as well.
To create my book cover, I used a strip of 4-3/4 x 9-1/2 in. Real Red cardstock on which I glued a piece of Sticky Sheet the same size. I peeled off the red lining and added the polka dot fabric on top. (Note that another option would be to use the Fabric Adhesive sold on page 17 of the Holidays mini. This option would work equally well and the only reason I picked the Adhesive Sheet over the Fabric Adhesive was because that it what I had on hand.) I then folded the fabric-covered cardstock in half, placed it on the Scallop Square clear die making sure to place the fold inside the scallops and I ran it through the Big Shot.
The fabric came in handy to do the book binding as well. I used the Crop-a-Dile to pierce four holes through the cover and inside pages and then use a long strip of fabric to bind the book together and tied the ends of that strip in a bow on the spine of the mini book. I added a bit of Olive satin ribbon in the middle of the bow and tucked the ends underneath, securing them with mini glue dots.
I used another fabulous die (my new favorite!) from the Holidays mini on the cover, namely the Tasteful Trims one. It is a Bigz die, which means that you can cut a variety of materials with it, including in this case white fun foam, which I used to create the rickrack you see on the front. The title was created with two additional dies (the Scallop Rectangle clearlits and the Billboard alphabet) and the A to Z background stamp in the back, along with the Calendar Alphabet & Numbers stamps.
My secong source of inspiration was an old IKEA publicity I had seen in a magazine. The concept was that they had made a tiny book that contained shortened versions of popular fairy tales for people with IKEA mattresses. I had found the concept so cute, I had decided to keep it, not sure how I would ever use it. This discovery came prior to my stamping year, but when I stumbled upon it, the wheels started spinning and I had a look at my current stamps to see what I could use to illustrate fairy tales. Those are the five tales I decided to pick:
You'll see on the following pages that I used the Broadsheet Alphabet to stamp the first letter of all of the tales. I used this set to stamp the inside of the cover as well. After much deliberation between wood or clear-mount, I finally settled my choice on clear-mount and it came in handy here as I was able to take my biggest mounting block and cover it entirely with letters, which allowed me to create a pattern on my cardstock much faster than if I had used each letter individually. The letters were first stamped in Versamark and then I picked some of the individual letters and overstamped them in Real Red ink so that they would pop up more. I used my trusty Stamp-a-Ma-Jig to line the letters up.
Now, let me make a confidence to you... One of the original letters had not stamped properly and it was bothering me, so I went to use the SAMJ and correct the letter. As I stamped it, I realized it was way to bright compared to the other letters and then it hit me that I had used Real Red ink instead of the original Versamark. Hence came the idea to make a few letters brighter so that it would look like an intentional pattern instead of a boo-boo. Now, I could have not shared this and no one would have been the wiser, but I am telling you this to remind you that a) everyone makes mistakes once in a while, so do not let that deflate you, because b) every mistake is salvageable! Look at your stash of ribbons, buttons, brads, embellishments before you ever throw anything away...
So... the first tale I illustrated was The fox and the crow. The fox came from Fox & Friends and the crow, from the From the Crypt set. I used the bird punch for the leaf, and the Rock 'n Roll technique on the fox for added dimension (and my Early Espresso marker to color his nose and eyes before stamping).
To create unity among each page, I created a circle background for each scene. To do so, I created a negative mask with the use of the 2-1/2-in. Circle punch (sold in the Holidays mini) and stamped a pattern and then sponged some colour in the masked circle. Here, the background was created using the A to Z background stamp (a personal favorite).
You'll notice the "A" on the right page, stamped with the Broadsheet Alphabet and adorned with a rhinestone.
"A fox encountered a crow that talked too much. He lost its cheese over it."
The second tale I picked is Cinderella. I filled the circle with the Paisley Party wheel and the pumpkin comes from the Paisley Prints set. The glass slipper was created with the Things I Love set. I inked the shoe with Versamark and then rock 'n rolled the rubber in Baja Breeze ink, stamped on white cardstock and embossed the shoe with Iridescent Ice powder. This creates an illusion of glass and the blue sheen gives the shoe dimension.
'Once upon a time, a poor girl got a new pair of glass slippers from her fairy godmother. She lost a shoe but gained a husband over it."
The third tale is Red Riding Hood. I already had my story figured out but was stuck on the fact that I didn't have a wolf or a little girl's image. Then, as I was looking through my stamps, I spotted the basket from the Tote-ally Tess set! So I stamped it on patterned paper and then had the idea of using a fabric scrap to line the basket. To simplify things, I cut the handle off of the basket, glued the fabric on it with a glue dot and then stamped the basket a second time and glued it underneath so that the handle would show behind. Easy-peasy! The background was created with the tree from Forest Friends.
"A little girl who loved to wear red visited her grandmother who lived in the woods. The little girl played a decisive role in the death of a wolf."
The fourth tale is The hare and the turtoise. I actually had to go back and reprint that one because I had miscalled it The hare and the turtle. Wrong translation... The turtoise came from Fox & Friends and the hare, from Forest Friends. The background was stamped with Woodgrain, and I created a finish line using linen thread.
"There was once an overconfident hare who was sure to win a race against a turtoise. He did not."
And last but not least, Puss in Boots. The background was stamped with En français, a little wink to the fact that the author of this tale, Charles Perreault, is French. I used the Simple Letters die to create a P out of Sticky Sheet (as you can see, I love that stuff!) and cover it with green glitter. The cat comes from the Pun Fun set, and I added some little boots on the cat with the use of my Basic Black Stampin' Write marker.
"A cat who belonged to a low-born master used trickery and deceit to gain power, wealth and the hand of a princess in marriage for his master. They lived happily ever after."
All of the illustrations used different colours depending on the images I was working with, but to create unity, I made sure to include my three main colors in every page, namely Real Red, Certainly Celery and Baja Breeze. This helped connect all of the elements together and create harmony between the pages.
So now, tell me, which fairy tale is your favorite?
~ The End ~
