Look into my eyes

For the last few weeks I have been working on a recycled mini book for a swap I entered.  It's been a lot of work but I've loved every minute of it.  The only thing missing was the cover image and so decided to use the Three Muses theme for this week - Eyes.

Recycled mini-book

 There are so many techniques and pages I won't go through them all here, but for those who would like to see all the pages you can view them on the Flickr slide show here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/83296776@N03/sets/72157632057873440/show/

The book is 1.5 inches wide, 2 inches tall and .75 inch thick.  It has 3 signatures of 2 pages each which has been hand sewn to the outside of the cover using waxed thread.  In addition to the book, is a book holder which is made in matching style also with an eye impression.

Inside Cover

The book is made from a frozen pizza box, off cuts of various papers, some scrap fibres and pieces of canvas.  Also included were some tiny pieces of art I had left over from making inchies and ATCs.  The book cover and book holder are made from printer paper, sprayed with inks and then collaged with tissue paper, stamped with an eye.

One of the inside pages showing the binding.

Book with open pages and the book cover

I also made a YouTube video of the book and describing each page that you can see here

Technique Time

About a year ago I was very interested in card making and decided to take the Jennifer McGuire course called Inspiration Canvas.  It was a great class and I learned lots of techniques, with each being produced on a small heart along with an embellishment in many cases.
As soon as I had completed 80% of the hearts, I watched the rest of the videos, played with the techniques on paper and then gradually put everything away in a cupboard.

This weekend I took everything out of the cupboard and finally finished the canvas!  It's not exactly my style now but I'm glad I did it.  The techniques are still great and the canvas will be a prompt for alternative techniques for things I'm currently working on.

12" x 12" Inspiration Showcase canvas

While I was finalising the remaining hearts and attaching it to the canvas, I realised that I really don't like following what someone else has done.  I would probably have been happier attaching the hearts to swing tags and writing descriptions on the back, but didn't think about it early enough.

Various techniques including resist, dry embossing and stamping with paint

Stamping on canvas, painting with pearl, heat embossing, mica powder and rust techniques

Rosette and Canvas heart

Embossed canvas 

Various ink, stamp and embossing techniques.  'Create' is coated in Glossy Accents

I couldn't resist switching out one of Jennifer McGuire's techniques and replacing with one of my own - rust!