In these uncertain times, with money stress and family stress and all the everyday stuff that we all deal with I have to remind myself that my life is really good. We are all healthy and have each other and we have each other. Last week I read off a young mother who’s husband died unexpectedly after a stroke. She has two little boys and now she’s on her own. I can’t even imagine losing Stephen. We’ve been married for 13 years and don’t even want to imagine living with out him or raising our twins without him. To raise money for this family, scrappy and mixed media artist Emily Falconbridge hosted a few silent auctions. I followed along, praying that there would be people out in the blog world who would help out. I was really pleased when Emily announced a way for everyone to participate in any amount and in return would get access to a “Messy Book” video tutorial.
I like her style, it’s fun, funky, messy, with paint and all sorts of other things added to a scrapbook page or mini book. And until now, I haven’t been able to attempt it. Watching her make this book with this and that and paint and paper was very inspiring and fun. So during nap time I decided to make a messy book of my own.
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| From messy book |
I didn’t trust sewing the pages as my machine and I have a very difficult relationship and I didn’t want add any more stress to it.
My idea for this book was to use things I rarely or never use. I’m tired of holding onto a piece of paper or other little thing like I’m afraid there will never be another like it in the world! To start with, I got out the Prima paintable card stock. It has a watercolor paper texture, with a beautiful drawn background that just was waiting for paint. But again, I hesitated to cut into it and use it. No More, I painted and cut it up to add to my book.
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| From messy book |
I also had bought a pack of the 6×6 die cut pages from Making Memories. You know the ones with the cool ledger lines and funky shapes. Yeah I bought them nearly a year ago, waiting for something special.
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| From messy book |
What a dork! At first I was going to make a photo mini out of this and as I gathered things up I decided to make it a journal of sorts. I had a watercolor I had done a few years ago that I never liked but since it’s on my favorite w/c paper Arches (say with a french accent) I never got rid of it so I could paint on the other side.
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| From messy book |
I ripped it into sections added it along with the cover from the w/c paper pad.
Then I added more bits and envelopes and tags until I had a big pile of pages.
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| From messy book |
I then bound it all together with my Bind it All that I was sure I needed and need to use much more. For the cover I added bright pink felt that I will add more stuff to as I use it.
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| messy book |
My book grew and evolved and now I think it will be a art journal, and a place to write my inspiring thoughts and favorite Bible scriptures. I may add paint and gunk it up bit, or I’ll use watercolor and illustrate a few things. Who knows? But right now I’m pretty happy with the final result.
