No Matter What, No Matter How

It was my elder daughter's birthday yesterday and she always asks for handmade things from me - you may remember the Harry Potter piece I made her a while back. This time around it's a general reading theme, a passion I have in common with both my girls, I'm thankful to say.

It's a shadow box and I've used a number of items from Stamperia's Vintage Library collection.

The main focus is the book pages. I used modeling clay and a mold to make the 'books', which I then painted and swiped with gold wax. I toyed with adding more to the sentiment - the words I've used for my header, in fact: no matter what, no matter how. I firmly believe it doesn't matter what you read - be it comics, graphic novels or books of any genre - and it doesn't matter how you read - physical books or e-reader - the most important thing is just that you read.

There's a few layers of pages, which I've shaped a bit and separated, though they are held in place.

And there's a little visitor hiding in the corner.

I stuck him a bit low down, forgetting some of that corner would be obscured by the framing once it was in place, but oh well, lesson learned. He was glued on way too good to move him, lol. Luckily DD didn't mind.

If you're an avid reader too, hope you enjoy! Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kerry

We're Going on an Egg Hunt

With both my girls grown and in homes of their own, I don't often make for Easter these days, but when I saw the Tim Holtz Easter release, I just knew I had to get them and create.

I've made a small display dome heavily inspired by two of Tim's makers, Paula Cheney and Tami Bastiaans.

The rabbit and eggs were painted with distress paint, I coloured the flowers using oxide sprays and hauled out some fake moss I bought years ago for the grass. Everything is hot glued in - it seems to be the only type of glue that holds that moss, which is kind of plasticy and very resistant to staying put, lol. As my eyesight isn't great for painting finer details with a brush, I used a Copic marker for the eyes and nose on my Easter Bunny.

By the way, this dome is only 4 1/4" high (about 11cm) and those tiny eggs are just that at 1/2" (1.3cm)!

Materials used:

• Tim Holtz Ideaology - salvaged rabbit, tiny eggs, barrel, bouquet, display dome
• distress paints - saltwater taffy, salvaged patina, dusty concord, squeezed lemonade, walnut stain, frayed burlap, antique linen
• distress oxide sprays - worn lipstick, kitsch flamingo
• other - E47 copic marker, linen thread, hot glue gun, imitation moss, paintbrush

With my first grandchild on the way, from next year I'll be able to indulge and make tons of fun things for all the holidays and occasions - can't wait!

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers

Kerry

PS How many of you saw my title and started singing 'we're going on a bear hunt' in your head like I did? Fess up! LOL.

Just Add Ink Blog Hop

At Just Add Ink challenges we're starting off the new year with a blog hop and the theme is 

If you've come from Rochelle's blog then you're in the right place. If you're starting here, you'll be able to keep following all the links to take you around the hop. 

My two favourites pasttimes are crafting (naturally) and reading - I'm rather a voracious reader and always have been and it's something I wanted to pass down to my girls. Elder Daughter seemed keen for a while  but her interest began to wane when she was in year one.

Then something happened that changed everything.

She came out of school one day chattering and excited about a book all her friends were talking about. Having never heard of it, I asked some of the other mothers, to be told it was a new phenomenon everywhere and that some of them had read it too. So I bought the book and we took turns reading it - and thus began her love for the fantasy genre and reading in general.  

The book? Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

So for my favourites project, I'd like to share an item that combines my two favourite pasttimes as well as being something I made for one of my two favourite people. 

There were lots of steps in making this, as you can imagine, but it was a labour of love. I began with making the 'book' base to support all the other bits - this is made from a wooden box (Tim Holtz vignette box) and I pretty much followed a tutorial by Tami Bastiaans here but changed a few things to suit, using a copy of the original bookcover, which is the edition we have. 

The suitcases were made using the SU retired matchbox die and some TH cracked leather cardstock. Luckily we live in a digital age, so I was able to find copies of the Hogwarts letter to Harry and his ticket for the Hogwarts Express. 

For the inside of the 'textbooks' I scanned pages from the actual book and cut them to size. The covers are TH ephemera. For the 'potions' inside the bottles I coloured glossy accents with alcohol ink, mixing them together with a toothpick. The bottles were grunged up a bit with collage medium and touches of distress crayon. I rolled up vellum for parchment (in the cauldron and down front with a quill die).

The owl was bought from a dollhouse miniatures place here in Melbourne. I did have to shave a bit off the tail to make it fit in the birdcage, lol.

As this represents Harry at the train station ready to head off to Hogwarts for the first time, I know that strictly speaking the broomstick shouldn't be there, but it was so adorable I just couldn't resist. Call it poetic licence, lol.

If you're a fellow Harry Potter fan, I hope you enjoyed that walk down memory lane! And I'm very happy to report that ED loves it.

Materials used:

• card - Coastal (Kaisercraft), basic white, vellum
• Tim Holtz Idea-ology - birdcage, cauldron, broomstick, potion bottles, vignette box, Memoir ephemera pack, 
• other TH products - collage medium matte, walnut stain and vintage photo distress crayons, vintage photo archival ink, antique linen distress paint, jump rings, alcohol inks,Regions Beyond die
• other - linen thread, computer and printer, Wee Creations miniatures, glossy accents

Thanks for calling in. I hope you find plenty to love along the hop and of course we'd love to see YOUR favourites on our challenge board this week.

Cheers

Kerry

Click on the icon below to hop to the next blog, which is Narelle.