Anything Goes at Bah Humbug

The lovely ladies at Bah Humbug have set an 'Anything Goes' challenge this week and for my Guest Designer creation I've made an altered book. I'd been itching to have a go at an altered book for ages and when I saw this tutorial over at Gingersnap Creations its spurred me on to have a go
Here's the outside

And the inside:

I'm a real book lover but it was easy to overcome my guilt at defacing a book when I got my paws on a pile of old books destined for the tip. I used stamps from Elusive Images, coloured with promarkers and added a little prisma glitter and clear sakura stardust highlights. For the book base. I covered the outside with papers from the Decadent Delights cd by Artylicious and I used  lots of Starburst stains, metallic rub ons and brilliance inks in shades of red and burgundy - I had loads of fun with this and made so much mess lol. I covered the spine of the book with gaffer tape, smeared some versamark ink on and embossed with some 'antiquities' EP and added a stamped holly image using the same EP. The berries are highlighted with some glossy accents and coloured with cranberry alcohol ink


 The flowers are all made from the cut out pages of the book, inked up and crumpled before being layered up and seed beads added for the centres.. I added some charcoal grey organza ribbon, a crystal buckle and some faux gems. To finish off I made a beaded tassel with size 6 and size 11 seed beads and added a right angle weave beaded chain for a 'bookmark'. I used a couple of junk earrings from the scrap store to make a little clip to attach the bookmark which can be removed from the book.

I've learnt a lot while making this book:
1. Dont try to clean your craft knife with your thumb, it hurts lol
2. Don't drop a big blob of red alcohol ink on the image you've just spent hours colouring (and if you do, remove the worst with blending solution or stazon cleaner (or both) and cover the splodge with some ribbon ;)
3.A teeny tiny pot can contain enough glitter to make you, your craft room and two german shepherds sparkle for days

I'm also entering my altered book into the Gingersnaps Colour Challenge (GC56) which is Burgundy, Ivory and Black and is inspired by the colours of old books so I thought my book would fit the theme perfectly.

I hope you find time to join us over at Bah Humbug and have  fun creating something for Christmas .... it won't be long now lol

Thanks for looking, have a good weekend
Claire xx