Not Quite ATC's

Hi and welcome! This time of the year brings back fond childhood memories of visiting aunts, my mum's sisters, and uncles. One of the times we visited Aunt Mary, was usually a week or two before Easter. There was a special reason for this. Aunty Mary and her husband, Charlie, owned and operated an Easter Egg factory!! They specialised in the candy eggs, all sizes; made commercially and some special ones, made to order. They came in the lovely pastels of blue, pink, yellow, green, apricot, lilac and white. Some of them had additional flavourings such as aniseed, musk or peppermint. Inside the eggs were conversation lollies, with their stamped messages. These were also made at the factory.
Uncle Charlie had a number of waste bins inside the factory where any damaged or broken eggs, or lollies, were placed. These bits were able to be taken,... as much as you liked. With small cardboard containers bulging, we would then get on with the other purpose of the visit... selecting eggs for purchase for family members. It seemed to me, at the time, the bigger the egg, the thicker they were and the longer they lasted. I believe that some years, I still had some piece of egg in the fridge, lasting from one Easter to the next!  They were very hard, and you had to break off small pieces and suck them to thinness before biting.  Uncle Charlie and Aunty Mary were very generous, because often we would find an extra egg or two tucked into the package, and on a couple of occasions, I was also given a box of conversation lollies, to share with my class at school... more than enough for all of the class with heaps left over!
It was the colours of these eggs that prompted the colouring of the pages for my spring-themed mini-book, which isn't quite small enough to be ATC sized (tho' not much larger). The book features small photos and quotes and poems about spring.
I used  white glitter finish A4 cardstock for the booklet. This has a satin finish and colours react in very interesting ways when applied to it.
Distress Stains (Picked Raspberry, Mowed Lawn and Shaded Lilac) were swiped across the page.
When slightly dry, I toned them down with Picket Fence and gave the page a light spritz with water. This gave some great blending. Then, while still slightly damp, I pounced on the same colours to make little splats on the page and did the same with Picket Fence over the top....... love Picket Fence!!! Such interesting result; almost like marbling or tie dying.

 

The A4 page gives 8 smaller surfaces to play with, by simply folding and cutting one slit.

It's a very simple technique, one I've revisited from use with students at school. It just involves folding in half lengthwise, then in the opposite direction, bringing in the two ends to met the central  vertical crease,  slitting along the lengthwise fold line (crease, to crease) then pushing the ends towards the centre to  make the pages. The two above photos are a different booklet.


The front cover has been stamped with an added teabag folded butterfly (quarter of a teabag tile)
The back cover, is a photo taken at dawn, at one of our local beaches (September, our spring Downunder, 2010).

                                                   Close-up of tea-bag folded butterfly

Inside pages 1  and 2  is a photo showing some of my green and maroon hippeastum papilios... the first of the season and usually flowering profusely in October / November. The metal embellishment is a bead cap, squashed flat. A poem torn from an old written -off school poetry book, was smooched with Distress Inks: Bundled Sage and Spun Sugar. Punched flowers, and Martha Stewart vellum leaves and bits of  bling have completed the pages.

I've used punched flowers again for the next two pages. These have been finished with Perfect Pearls , liquid pearls and bling. Quotes, one from an old madrigal, 'Now is the Month of Maying'  a song I learnt when part of my High School Madrigal group (and still remembered!!!!), have been written down. The photo comes again from my garden collection and shows a native Bridal Veil orchid, which flowers in September.

Page 5 features a teabag folded flower and another butterfly. Again I've used 1/4 sized tiles. The poem is a Japanese Haiku.

For page 6,  I've used the ghost stamping technique and spritzed the dry piece with glimmer mist. The poem has come from the same book as the previous one. The rabbit is a piece of washi tape, which features stamps and post marks.

I'd like to submit my little booklet into the ABAC Challenge 15: Spring or Alice in Wonderland theme. Look here, to see what the design team and other fabulous artists have done for this challenge.
http://anythingbutacard.blogspot.ca/

Thank you for visiting. Your comments are very much appreciated. Cheers, Di