"delight" in the details...

I've still got a ton of paper left from this paper pad so I thought I'd make a little book. Most of the time I follow the same basic formula for this... and I try to use stuff I already have on hand. Not that it stops me from shopping for new stuff, I just feel a little more 'green' if I'm using up supplies already here. Right.

One supply I never purchase is chipboard. Sorry, just can't do it. I use cereal boxes- there is a never-ending supply of them. If I want something real sturdy I just glue several layers together.

Cheerios are good for you. Especially the multi-grain ones!

This is the paper I decided to use for the front/back covers. It's hard to remember to take photos now BEFORE I do things- it's too tempting to just jump on in. Pretend there isn't a big chunk missing from this piece of paper!

Since there are 2 sheets of each piece, the "base" of my covers is one sheet untouched. After I figured out what size to make them, I used the extra inches on each piece to cut the flowers out in groups. Play around with placement- hey, there's no glue involved so you can move them a hundred times. Then move them a few more times. Finally get to something you like. Glue them down, remembering to tuck the edges over and under other pieces to get a little 'movement' on your cover.

Forgive the weird shadows! I'm not a good photographer.

I inked all my edges before gluing to eliminate the white edge on some of the pieces.
Here's my back cover...

And here's my front cover...

For the inside covers, I needed sheet music.

I love, love, LOVE vintage sheet music. Problem is, I never have enough. Whenever I found a book at the antique store, I'd squirrel it away and use it oh-so-carefully. It killed me to throw any scraps away because there are times when I'm just plain out. No more sheet music to be found (at a reasonable price, anyway). Those drought times are tough!

Well, my girlfriend Kris and I stumbled upon an estate sale a few weeks back and as I was wandering around looking at all the 'junk' in that place she grabbed my arm and dragged me over to a shelf in the garage. What she was pointing out was a bunch... wait, no, it was a stack... of sheet music. Very, very vintage sheet music. We couldn't believe it! There must have been 250-300 pieces of music in there, along with several books (and also someone's military orders from 1951!). The nice lady sold it all to me for $15. I could have kissed her. I'm used to paying $5 for about 10 pages of music, if I'm lucky enough to find any at all.

What a jackpot!!! (and I'm still finding it hard to cut them up. What is wrong with me???)

I like to use lots of adhesive on my stuff. My favorite adhesive right now is Beacon's 3-in-1 adhesive. Make sure to get it all the way to the very edge of the board or your paper edges will be loose. I can't deal with that- sort of an OCD thing, I think!

Don't worry about those ragged, discolored edges. They're gold, I tell ya. They give the piece some personality.

In fact, I purposely look to use those edges. I love them. I just make sure to use lots of glue to hold them down. Wouldn't want them getting worn or torn on their own, now that they're already perfect!

The sanding block is my secret weapon. This old music is so fragile that all it takes is a couple swipes of the sanding block to trim off anything overlapping the chipboard.

The thrift store has been a great place to find old trims and seam bindings. Sometimes I find colors that I just don't see anymore. This whole bag of trim cost .35!

I wrapped some pale sage green satin ribbon around the front cover, added some 'vine' trim and then started looking through my embellishment jars. Here's what I found...

A Tim Holtz bookplate, some velvet wired leaves (from the wedding dept. at Michael's), a couple tea-stained shipping tags and an old resin bubble-sticker-thing.

Tomorrow I'll start working on the pages to go inside...