ACP:2 Black + S

This month's colour is Black, and as we all know Black goes with everything! and so for that reason my first project this month is a colour free-for-all -  anything/everything goes - literally!

Each day this month I have spent 15 minutes working on a project  - just a...

• no hassle
• mind clearing
• getting in the mood to create
• clearing the workroom
• using up the scraps

... sort of project... and it fits in nicely with first letter of this month: the letter S, because S stands for scraps,  scrapbooking, sewing... oh and stenciling & stamping!

When I make a project I always cut extras ('just in case') and keep the left over bits and pieces,these end up gathering in a box or clear file... well enough is enough.  I am being ruthless and firm with myself : STOP SAVING THE SCRAPS (ooh look at all the lovely Ss in that sentence)

Now you might think the pile (imagine I'm saying 'the pile' in a deep scary voice with echo lol to give it gravitas) doesn't look too bad - but remember its a PILE there's plenty of bits and pieces under what you can see - and for size perspective - the cards you can see in the top right hand corner measure 6x4inches.

My project/plan is to make a card every day in October, and extras if I'm in the mood... I didn't set myself any rules or guidelines (why make things hard for yourself) (not even deciding on landscape or portrait! big step for me! lol) except that:

• Every card must use at least one piece out of the scrap box/from the pile...
• Nothing new can be bought and used - whatever used must be IN my workroom.

Simple!  I love the challenge of this - making (hopefully) something special out of scraps... and adapting items so they can be used (such as die cutting letters or shapes from the random bits of card that are in the pile..)

Oh, and anything left over at the end of the month will be thrown away.

Here are the cards so far:

I love the little monsters Elena has designed for PaperArtsy (you can find them at www.paperartsy.co.uk), and having used them on my nephew's birthday card I couldn't resist adding one on this page.

The die cut apple above has been in the pile for aaaaages - looks great on this page!  On the right is a ghost print cut from one of the underpapers on my desk - definitely too nice to throw away!

Bit of a motivational page here - and for some reason I seem to have quite a few of these cupcakes in the pile.

Love this page - I wanted to use bubble wrap on a page which has been used to gelli print - always great colour blends left behind so thats what I put on the reverse (on right)

Photos printed out on polaroid style film - I really like the dinky little prints..

A very funny evening watching Nina Conti, the ventriloquist, at the Cliffs Pavilion - really clever too... an evening that was so funny you have tears running down your face.

These shoes are stamps from JOFY43, the 'boy' plate - works really well to illustrate how much walking we did that day!

 There had to be tags and book text in there somewhere!

I wrote on this page but it wasn't important (so I don't mind that it is barely visible) - I wanted the embellishments to be the focus.... it doesn't always need to be about the words..

From the photos above you can see the pages are all bound on BIG book rings... They are in a book I created from a book cover I had in my room - yes I really did have an old book cover stashed under the desk just waiting for the perfect project! (you can see how long I've had it because my name is written on it - my maiden name - I've been married 11 years!)

 I think I had originally used it for altered book techniques.. and removed the pages at some point...

I punched some holes in, made sure the book rings and pages fitted and painted it all over - front and back- with black gesso - LUSH!

Went 'old school' and dug out the hammer and eyelet tools.. which were sadly not man enough to go through the book covers...  This book rin and book cover is a binding method I've used before and like very much (you can see another project HERE) and I found it on Julie Kirk's blog (HERE).

I needed to bring out the big guns! I don't use the Crop-a-dile Big Bite very often but I am very glad I have it- so easy to punch through the book covers and set the eyelets.

Here's the cover in-progress - using a card that I'd painted way back at the start of the project - I thought it would look great on the cover and reflects the contents.  The only number you can still see on the ruler running along the bottom is '22' which made me smile - as that's my birthday! Coincidences like that make me smile!

The cover a little bit further along:  I embossed the tips of the seedhead (WOW, silver sparkle), bubble wrap printed randomly, drew around the edges in grey pencils, added spots of Mermaid to break up the Chalk bubble wrap print.... all glue down but it was still missing 'something'....

I added a title and date and it is finished.

15 days to go....
(and just in case you were wondering - I've used 72 pieces from the pile)


Thanks for stopping by.

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