Holiday makes..... Part 4: From cereal box to....

..... mini junk book

Every morning on holiday I try and eat healthily- I walk past the champagne bar "mimosa signora??", past the pastry counter (aaaaah the smell of hot croissants!!) and the sausages, eggs, waffles etc etc etc - you name it & its available - all very (too) tempting!!

Instead I have a box of one of these (which I like to jazz it up with fruit, nuts and... stuff...) ....and thank goodness for illustrations on boxes otherwise I wouldn't have a clue what they were! My Spanish vocabulary is very limited and the writing on those boxes is really small! and I mean really small!!

But, I'm not choosing these purely for their tastiness.. oh no.. I'm also choosing them for their packaging! Cardboard! Oh yes!! on a previous holiday I used it to make stencils but this time I had plans to make a book!!

I know this isn't groundbreaking or rocket science but I liked the challenge of making something out of nothing and with limited supplies...

I set up a creative station on one of the tables in the room - I chose this one because it had a glass top - now that was a revelation:  I NEED a glass top to my desk at home - great for use with paints, cutting on, easy to clean - why haven't I thought of this before!!

I cut up the boxes - discarding the narrow sides and cutting the remaining front and backs into 12x6.5cm panels, then scored and glued as the diagram below - easy way to create a book

I glued it together with Matte Medium and waited for it to dry. Then the decorating began... I limited myself to 3ish colours for the book - trying to makes sure these colour appeared on each spread working as a theme/scheme throughout the book.. Neon Pink (love!!), dark blue (I think its Baltic Blue), Gold, Aqua blue watercolour...

The front and back covers: made out of a piece of gelli printed paper I'd bought with me.. they were cut and glue on in separate pieces and where the pattern didn't cover  the page I stamped on the mini alphabet set as a block in neon pink acrylic paint... what is not to love about that colour!!  (neon pink circles were created with a bottle top)

The book pages that had cereal packet print on needed to be covered in paper to block out the bold colours - on this spread I used vintage music paper and another gelli print.  The doily came from one of the restaurants and the alphabet strip is a handwriting excercise book I have in my stash.  I doodled onto the gelli print on the right-hand page and the text strip is the title of the book pages I brought with me - considering the heat I was creating in it couldn't be more appropriate could it! lol

More paper covered pages, with stenciling - I brought 2 stencils with me - big number and an alphabet (Tim Holtz stencils)...I have neon paint and I am not afraid to use it!  The chevrons are a stamp (JOFY36) painted with Aqua watercolour.
NB a glue stick makes a great mini roller for spreading glue and getting rid of airbubbles after you've glued papers down (as above)

I really like this spread - the circles (stamped using a bottle top) and the chevrons - I like how they look dimensional - almost like bubbles.. 'happy' is cut from a magazine and the tag is one I brought with me they I washed with the watercolour paint... it flaps open to reveal the second page of this spread.

I've added this photo to show how shiny, metallic and pretty the Fresco Finish Gold paint is! and when used with the Neon and Aqua paint - LUSH!!

When you lift the tag (the added page in the previous diagram) it reveals a stenciled number 9 which is my 'magic' number so the clipping from a magazine was another apt addition....spots are from JOFY36

This is a top view of the book showing the spine and the added page - a really simple addition.

This is the final spreak - book text across the hinge are, another doily with doodling and a phrase cut from book text (again its a bit of a nod to the holiday).. the right hand page is the alphabet stencil and gold paint... more spots and neon paint.

That's all my holiday creations - not many from this holiday - I usually make more sitting at the pool but I couldn't on this holiday as there was a lovely breeze - papers would've been everywhere!

And when the temperature is upwards of 85degrees I'd rather have the breeze thank you!

Thanks for popping by.

x