Elizabeth & Kat's April birthdays.

This is the story of my making Elizabeth's birthday presents and then her opening them. Then you will see pictures of my birthday and there are a couple of Bleubeard too. Below is a stuffed rocking horse that I made for E. The pieces were cut out and someone gave them to our bazaar at church last fall. Well knowing how E loved and saved rocking horses I bought him. I didn't get it done for Christmas so I decided I'd better do it now. It turned into more work than I thought. I had to get both pieces of the horse and same with the runners exactly together so the margin of white didn't show between the seams. Then stuffing him was a long process. Then I decided to sew gold metal bells over the ones printed on his harness & I sewed three red beads on the holly on his neck and on his saddle. I went over the buckle with my gold leaf pen and then I took a glue glitter pen & dabbed it on each berry on the holly on the runners. I don't particularly like to sew so E should feel good that I did for her.

Last minute on Thursday night, I got an e-mail from Digital scrapbook Place and they gave me a free digital set for my birthday. Well when I went to get it downloaded I saw a set called altered album and I loved it and just had to make E a card with it. That's what you see above. This was at quarter to 12 and I thought oh this won't take long. Well I printed the front and back and then I designed the inside and printed it on the other side. I got it upside down. So I did another page which wished her a topsy turvy page with an arrow pointed to the upside down page. LOL. Then I also designed one to put on the envelope. Well I had to then cut those out so I could glue the one inside the card and then the other on the envelope. So I didn't go to bed till after one.

Now her other handmade gift was a book that I decided to make her. I knew she didn't have a fabric book and I've been wanted to play with one. In the last cloth, paper, scissors I saw a wall hanging that a gal had made and the theme was Poisson d'Avril. This is french for April Fish. She used an old french postcard for the holiday. So I went to the internet and spent hours downloading every french April Fish day card or pic that I could find. I also picked up some stories on the day. It is on April 1st just like our April Fools day and they send cards with fish on them and sometimes try to stick a fish to peoples backs. The fish also brings love and kisses. Above you see the cover of the book. I cut some book board I had to 8 1/2 X 8 1/2 and I covered it with scrapbook paper. On the inside covers I then put a square of a contrasting paper. I punched three holes and put eyelets in them. I then digitally did the page that is the front cover and I reprinted the fish that are on it and I pop dotted them onto the cover and then covered them with crystal lacquer so they look like poem stones so to speak. I also made 4 extra and strung them on a piece of fiber to hang from the top of the book. I had a victorian alphabet that I used for her name and then I used crystal lacquer just on the letters not the whole square. I punched holes in the book covers and the pages and then strung fiber through the 3 holes and tied the orange one in a bow. I hung the string of fish from the top fiber.

Above is the inside front cover. It has a postcard of a girl riding a fish. I put flowers on her hat and a feather and flowers in her hand and under the fish & some ribbon bows.

This material and the next page which is the backside is a batik material. The netting is a piece of some stuff that E gave me. I explained the Poisson d'Avril on the journaling piece and distressed it. All the paper pieces I used in the book were glued on with gel medium and then sprayed with fixative & then a coat of gel medium. I cut all the square pages out with pinking shears so they would be less likely to unravel. Below is the back side of the batik. The postcard on it is one I put on fabric. I had one t-shirt transfer sheet left from who knows how long ago and so I printed 4 of the postcards on it and then ironed them on muslin and cut them out with the pinking shears. I stitched most of the pictures on the machine, to the squares and then put the squares back to back and stitched them together. This page is the only one that I didn't sew something on back of because I couldn't make myself cover up the gorgeous batik.

The page above has a map somewhere in France and someone had traced the fish that is on it. The fish postcard is sewed on and then I distressed the edges and the stitch lines. I just used an off white thread on everything and then colored it with distress ink. I also used my finger nail and tore and folded back some places on the edges and distressed the back of them to make it all look old. I also tried to stamp some swirls on this page. Have any of you tried to stamp on material like this? What type of ink pad did you use? I tried several and none were doing a good job so I quit. Some of the pages have room to add other things and I told E she could play with that and add any extra she wanted.

The background on these two pages, above and below, are ones that E had done on Viva paper towels and gave to me. So now the book has paper, material and paper towels. I stamped some swirls on this one and they did better but they are on paper. I put a map of Paris under this postcard.

The background on these two pages are some muslin that E & I took out in the yard and laid on the grass and then we sprayed them with Adirondack washes and some of Aileen's sprays to, I think. We did these last year in April. The pic above is one of the ones I ironed on muslin and it has a paper map of Paris under it.

The page above has a fish someone drew and then did a caricature of a man for its head. Love the fish going boating. The picture below is also on muslin and over a sepia colored map of Paris.

The Koi on the page above is a square with the background and the fish on it. I then took crystal lacquer and coated just the fish. The fish below is actually a pic from the internet of a fish made of cloth.

The last page has a map of Paris, a blue fish picture that again was of a stitched fish, some April Fish day costumes & my caricature of my college picture & I shaded it to match the body of the fish & put guess who on it.

The back inside cover has a tag with a pocket and a little card for her birthday. Below she is taking the book from its bag and there was also some molding material to make molds of anything you want to press into it & then you bake them to use over and over again.

Above is an old player piano roll that E gave me. She knew I wanted to make a book type journal of Alice in Wonderland on one of these. The four little pics on the left are put on paper and she used fingernail polish to cover the paper and then rolled each end in opposite directions and you can put a chain or cord through the top roll and wear them as a necklace. The three cabinet cards are from Theresa and the pendant laying on the middle one is one E made for me from tumbled glass and wire that she put around it and designed and hung a stone heart from it.

Above is a postcard that I got from Theresa today. I love the stamped woman with her bejeweled buttons that T added. And also the buttons on top of the torn paper . The happy Birthday is little cut out squares that are like scrabble tiles. She also sent me a Basic Grey tag book which will be fun to play with. I love basicgrey papers.

Above and below is Bleubeard. I put some of my stuff in my bag and he decided to investigate. I kind of caught him as he backed out. He had his whole head in there. Then he turned around and just plopped kind of half on the bag. He gave us a good laugh.

We had a fun day. E took me to a chinese buffet for lunch and then we went to Ebersoles which is a gem, jewelry craft type place that has been going out of business for several years. LOL. I guess they will close their doors when they get the building sold. They have some 50% off stuff and a lot of 75% off and some 80 and 90 so its fun to look. E paid for part of my purchases and managed not to choke over what I spent altogether. I'd been there before but just looked at things that I could use in altered books but since I've started making jewelry I saw it in a different light. I bought lots of chains and findings and stones or gems and a few beads. I got like $150 dollars worth of stuff for a little over $40 so I felt good about it.

Happy Birthday E.

Kat