Altered Composition Books

Even though Christmas is still 6 months away in retrospect that is not that far off when you are like me and make a good number of your gifts. So I am always looking for fun little gifts that are functional as well as beautiful and thought I would share with everyone some of my gift ideas.

The first one I am sharein is hand altered composition books. You can get composition books really cheap at dollar stores and I dare say Walmart is $.98 and then with a bit of decorative papers and pretty little collage images you can come up with a breathtaking notebook perfect for that special some one.

Here are a few designs I have come up with for my Etsy shop.

SORCIERE NOTEBOOK

With this one I found an awesome image of the evil fairy from Sleeping beauty and great hand made paper in this black and green. I cut a mat to go behind the image and then I took pearl ex in gold and dusted it then sealed it with "Pastel" fixative. I added some great brads down the side and a lovely piece of tulle ribbon to tie it all together.

CELTIC JOURNEY NOTEBOOK

So for this one I created the images in photo shop by combining a background I made with digital stamps. I printed them out on my home computer added some great lime paper by K & Co, black and white ribbon along the edge and to make it a one of a kind I added metal flowers along her bow. to finish I used black paint to distress the edges.

BOMBSHELL NOTEBOOK

For this book I found a great film noir inspired backgroundand in photoshop I altered it by adding the Marylin Monroe pin up and sentiment frame. I found some great girly pink and black polk-a-dot paper for the background and on one of my antique outings found some amazing vintage polk-a-dot ribbon. to finish it off I added some amazing animal print bling by spare parts (you can get them at Hobby Lobby). This is perfect for the retro friends in your life!

SAMURI NOTEBOOK

I have a number of friends who are very into all things asian so I created these background papers in photoshop by layering them until I got the effect I wanted. For My background paper I used Bo Bunny swirl card stock and added some hand dyed silk ribbon along the edge and knotted it off to create the dangles. Then I took oriental coin brads from creative imaginations and ran then down the spine and tied one to the ribbon dangles along with a cool metal oriental finding I found in my stash.

JUST BREATH NOTEBOOK

this one was inspired by my best friends favorite movie "Everafter" and in photo shop I created a image by layering images I found on the internet and some of my digital Webster Pages papers. Then as a background I had this amazing Cosmo Cricket papers and then using gold acrylic paint and a dry paint brush I antiqued the book. I added some pretty rust colored ribbon from my stash and metal flowers along the bottom edge.

I do sell mine in my Etsy store but I also love to give these as gifts to friends and family.

This week the DYSU blog is having a hollywood challenge and I invite all of you to pop over and check it out and perhaps even enter your own designs.

If you make some of your own composition books I would love to see them so be sure and add a thread to this entry.

Oh and dont forget tonight on TLC CRAFT WARS begins!

Happy Crafting

Leanne

FUN WITH JEWLERY

This month I am teaching with fellow artist Stephanie Jones a Jewlery class at Stamp Antonio Arts in San Antonio. This is a new passion I have stumbled into which I am having a wonderful time coming up with new inspirations. So I thought it might be fun to show everyone what I have been coming up with and invite you all to come take my class if you will be in the San Antonio Area on the 30th...or just have fun at home creating works for yourself or for gifts (it is never to early to start thinking about Christmas). So sit back and enjoy the show and at the end there will be a HUGE surprise for you all!

ASIAN CANVAS PIN

for this I used a wonderful 2x2 mini canvas that I found at Micheals in the art supply area, a bottle cap to place a 1" circle image in (I got the image from Gecko Galz), red twine by May arts, beads by Blue Moon and a great asian script stamp by Studio 112.

LITTLE SHRINE PENDENT

For this little pendent I got a mini shrine from Retro Cafe (they are our Shop of the month listed on the left side) and a cute little bird image from Gecko Galz Aviary collection, gold UTEE, glossy accents and glimmer mist to add color to the shrine.

TREE OF LIFE PENDENT

This was a fun pendent to make because not only did I get to try my hand at wire wrapping but altered a domino with paper, paint ad alcohol inks.

MERMAIDS DELIGHT PENDENT

To create this pendent I took a domino and brushed on clear stickles then alcohol inked it with juniper and shell pink then sprayed with polly seal spray which can be purchased at Hobby Lobby in the spray adhesives. Then I found this amazing glass mermaid at Micheals and adhered it on with glossy accents along with a filigree bead.

NEVER MORE PENDENT

Okay so I am way into altering dominos lol, this one I painted using alcohol inks then adhered the crow image and painted the entire domino with glossy accents. Once it was dry I added the copper bail and the decorative finding I found at a junk fair.

LEONARDOS CAPTAIN PENDENT

This domino I painted with copper acrylic paint then once it was dry I stamped a Leonardo Divinci image on the top using black Staz On then added glossy accents to seal in image. Last I added a copper bail on top using glossy accents.

WELL OILED MACHINE

Okay this one was amazingly fun...again I started with a domino and alcohol inked with Butterscotch, ginger and ecspresso then sprayed with a polly sealant this makes the colored run diffrently for a cool oil effect (make sure you get the glossy sealant). Then I added some Tim Holtz metal cogs to the top with glossy accents for a true steam punk look.

I hope you enjoyed my little collection and now I want to give every one the chance to win some fantastic domino and bottle cap ephemera from Gecko Galz.....you will get 4 sets of collage sheets and all you have to do is leave a comment to this thread then next Wendsday we will randomly choose a winner! Easy hu? Well lets get crafty!

Leanne