Most of the pages I made for our Round Robin book, are "low color". But every now and then, I slipped in some floral tones, just because I thought it needed a little something. This page for Beth, is a tissue pattern paper background, glued down nice and wrinkly, then rubbed with an ink pad.
A ruffle of pattern paper was glued across the top, and a swath of lace was added near the bottom of the page. The B for Beth is drawn in glitter, onto a very old, hand written letter in French. I centered it inside a post card, with a circle cut out, layered it onto text from an old sewing magazine from the 20s that I'd covered a tag with.
The ribbons hanging down have glass buttons tied to a couple of their ends.
The theme of the Round Robin was "Her Life in Stitches", and I simply don't sew. All of my pages are glued, while the other women spent time doing lovely stitch work. I tried to use the theme by incorporating some sort of sewing item on each page. I tended to rely on buttons, lace, and ribbons quite a bit, I'm afraid.
Beth is one of the few people I've known who uses both sides of her brain to the fullest. How many ultra artistic accountants do you know? Her head is quite ambidextrous.
So, I thought I'd show both sides of her in her pages, creative and pretty stuff along with the business side.
This one has an envelope and report cards from a business college and is dated 1918. The background is a great old, gold leaf wallpaper.
There are layers of lace, ruffled ribbon, and a bejeweled hem from an old dress, along with a selection of buttons.
The back is kind of plain. Grey wallpaper, with a strip of the gold leaf paper, some lace and a pretty Victorian card.
Since the books all need to be sent off to Somerset soon, (how exciting!!) I hurried and made a few pages up for each person in the swap. All the pages were done in the same day, so a lot of the ideas and supplies were duplicated, but none were exactly the same. Everyone got an initial, Sandra's is done in pearls.
Lisa's too.
My own initials went on the inside of the back cover of my book. Since I'm not a sewer, my book is dedicated to my Mom, who was. Her photo is on both the front and back covers. Under her picture, I layered a page from a journal that I'd found that was signed, "Martha something Downey".
Mom's name was Martha Downey! Not that common of a name, especially with the "e" in Downey. I used the bottom of her photo to cover up the incorrect middle name.
Another unifying element in the pages I made the other day, is this jeweled and beaded fabric. I bought a flapper style dress that was encrusted with beads and rhinestone trim for only 12 bucks! I think everyone who was shopping at the antique mall heard my squeal when I came across that gem. It was tattered and falling apart, so that took all the guilt out of chopping it to pieces.
For this pocket, I cut around the beading pattern, then glued it to a matching piece of card stock.
Its attached to a background of white, flocked wallpaper. When I make a pocket, I always run a bead of glue along the bottom and sides, right at the edges, then slightly bunch it up, before pressing it into place. The bunching gives it a bit of a pouch effect, so that you can put items into it easier. Its not all that noticeable, just enough to be useful.
To fit the stitches theme, I slipped a dress form tag into the pocket. The tag is one that I made for my dress form tutorial, the class is about making a miniature dress form to decorate, but I also included patterns for collage too.
Sandra got a similar pocket from the glorious, gemstone encrusted, dazzling dress.
The tag I added to this pocket is a regular shipping tag, spritzed with two shades of Glimmer Mist, then inked around the edges. I glued a high fashion lady cut from a very old magazine onto it, added some ribbons.
Its been such fun to be a part of this swap and have a different book arrive each month in the mail. I'll miss being a part of it.
Other fun stuff has been coming in the mail too. Laurie Jackson offered to be a Birdsong Two sponsor, not just once,
but twice!
Two boxes full of goodies for my "Peeps" attending our workshop/party in April came from her this week.
Laurie took the time to actually create little gifts for all of the women, plus gave them some vintage goodies to work with, and packaged them up really cute.
But that wasn't the end of it, she also asked the author of this book, that she collaborated on, to send a copy for each lady! I can't wait to peek into one. I can always use some selling tips. I wonder if one of them, is to get off your behind and get busy and do it, not just talk about filling the shop up?
If you'd like to be a sponsor, please let me know, the ladies will be thrilled to open their gift bags.
Or if you'd like to attend, we have three spaces open. There were only two, but due to an illness, one chick had to leave the nest.
