Summer Fairies - By Florence

Hi everyone

How is everyone this morning.  Has anyone got anything special planned for the weekend?

One of the stamp sets we are focusing on this month is the Summer Fairies.  Please check out the link to see the options.

What a magical set they are.

When I received the stamps the first thought I had was "wouldn't they be great to use whilst crafting with the children or grandchildren over the summer holidays".  They would keep the children happy for hours.  Saying that, fairies are always popular with crafters.

Not only would these make fab cards but what about invitations to parties.  Or, what about using them to make table decorations for a fairy themed party.  I would love one of those.  Any excuse to wear a pair of wings.

The possibilities are endless with these stamps.


Today I wanted to share with you an altered book project that I made.

please click on the image to see the detail


1. The Cover and Base.

Using a craft knife, I cut a rectangle out of the cover of an old book.
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I measured and marked 1 cm around the inside of the book cover aperture, onto the first inside page of the book and started cutting away the inside of the pages, where I had marked, until I had reached about 1.5 - 2 cms depth, creating an internal box.

The book I used was a spy fiction book so I attached a page from Wind in the Willows to the page at the base of the internal box.  That is the page you can see as the background behind the embellishments.

I then roughly painted the whole of the book cover front and back with a lilac colored craft paint. 

I dry brushed some white paint over the painted cover, just a hint really, and then gave everything a really good rub with some sand paper.

The back of the book


When the paint on the cover was dry I used some stencil masks, a piece of bathroom sponge and some blue and pink paint to create some patterns all over it.

I stamped the butterflies, on the back cover, using Black Archival Ink.

I colored the butterflies with Distress Ink and a damp paint brush.


2. The Embellishments

 I stamped the 7 butterflies, 6 flowers and the fairy image on white coated card stock using Black Archival Ink.

When the ink was dry I *cut all of the images out and colored them using a damp paint brush colored ink from pens and Distress Ink pads.  I then gave them all a quick spray of artists water color fixative.  * When I cut the fairy out I left a 1.5 cm tab at the bottom of the image for fixing purposes.

I attached my flowers to cocktail sticks using silicon glue and added a sparkly gem to the centers.


3. The Assemblage.


With a craft knife, I cut away another small slot in the book page so I could slot the cocktail sticks in for fixing purposes

I placed the flowers and their wooden stems into the aperture, slotted the stems into the cutout slot and secured them with silicon glue.

I placed the fairy in the position I wanted and fixed her by glue the tab (as mentioned above) inside the pages at the base.

To add a little bit more of a support to the fairy, I placed and glued some trimmed bottle corks behind her.

To make the book solid, I glued the pages together.

 Firstly, I took a batch of pages say 1cm's worth and then glue two pages together, covering the whole of the page with glue and then repeated this for all of the book.

Holding the book closed I generously applied some PVA glue to the outside edges of the book pages. Firstly with a brush and then I pushed and smoothed the glue into the pages with my finger.

I then placed the book on the floor and laid 4 or 5 heavy books on top and left it to dry for a few hours.

Finally, I glued the butterflies onto the top left-hand corner of the front cover and added some ribbon to cover the title on the spine.  I had painted over this but the embossing still showed through a little.  I also trimmed off the ends of the cocktail sticks with a blade.

If you have any questions please drop me a line in the comments box.

I hope you enjoyed your visit. 

Kindest Regards
Florence x