Thursday, 21 April 2011

Book Sculpture Tutorial


To make this book sculpture you will need:

Tacky Glue
1 Hardback book around 400 pages
Scissors

Firstly I opened the book in the center letting the pages fall open.  I then carefully removed the pages from the center that tended not to lie flat.

To make the center of the roses take one page and fold in half length ways, cut a thin strip along the fold (keep this strip for later).  Repeat this process giving you four strips of equal width. 

Take 1 strip and start to roll quite tightly, glue the end and then start to roll another strip, gluing when you come to the end.  Repeat this with all four strips.  You can vary the size of the flowers if you wish by adding more strips.

Now take another page and fold in half, turn and fold again, turn and fold again.  Cut out a petal shape, giving you 8 petals.  Take each petal in turn and put a little tacky glue along the bottom edge.  One by one wrap each petal around the center 'coil', slightly overlapping each petal as you go.  Gently bend the outer top edge of the petals around the outside of the rose.  Make as many of these as you like.


Next fold a page as before and cut out a leaf shape.  I used pinking shears to trim the outer edge of the tips of the leaves.  Make a snip in the base of the leaf, overlap slightly and glue.  Bend the tip of the leaf over.  Again make as many as you like.

Take the thin folded strips which you saved earlier.  Take two or three and fold in half, twist the folded end together to give a 'stem' of around 1 cm long.  Also take a few strips of paper and run across the edge of the scissors to make a curl (like you do with gift wrap ribbon).

Now take the open book and run the scissor handles along the center to flatten any little bits of page stubs.  Using tacky glue arrange and stick flowers, leaves and other bits down the center.  You can extend more flowers across the top of the pages so make a bouquet effect if you wish.  Et Voila!

Wednesday, 13 April 2011

And The Winner Is...

Natasha!  Thank you to everyone who entered my first blog giveaway!  Apologies for the lateness in posting... were you all in suspense?  My lovely neighbor was out this morning so I waited for Lovely Man to come home for lunch, he was quite excited when I first handed him the pot (he thought it was something nice to eat).  Congratulations Natasha hope you love it!

I quite enjoyed doing this ha ha!  I think I will do another soon... let me see.... when I reach the grand total of 100 followers on New Challenges!

Saturday, 9 April 2011

Art From The Heart

Hop on over to this lovely blog, Art From The Heart, for a wonderful giveaway!  And don't forget to scroll down to my previous post and enter for my giveaway before Wednesday!  Good Luck!

Tuesday, 5 April 2011

My First Blog Giveaway

As you all know I recently had both my blogs revamped with the help of my lovely friend, Jeanette and today my shipment from Zazzle.ca arrived, postcards in each of the designs I have done so far.  I have been fortunate to win a lovely giveaway, courtesy of Cathy just before Christmas and I have taken part in my first Swap Challenge with Louise earlier this year.  For ages now I have wanted to up the stakes on my blogging and my art, I wanted to be more active in the blogging community.  So I have decided to do my first giveaway... Yay!  Up for grabs is this cute little stationary wallet with my Summer Mermaid printed on silk on the front handmade by yours truly.  Inside there are two pockets, one for envelopes and one for postcards or gift cards.  Included are 5 postcards with white envelopes, one of each of the five designs I have on Zazzle so far.



 The Giveaway is open worldwide and the closing date is Wednesday 13th April 2011 at 9 am EST (that's 2pm GMT!) .  To be in with a chance to win, you can do any or all of the following:
  • Leave a comment below - 1 entry
  • Follow this Blog - 1 entry (if you follow already tell me in the comment)
  • Follow my other blog - 1 entry (if you follow already tell me in the comment)
  • Tweet me - 1 entry
  • Post this giveaway on your blog - 1 entry
That's it, simples!  No catch questions, no tie breakers just a few clicks and maybe an extra blog post!  Just let me know in the comments below which you have done.  I'm a bit of a technophobe so I will be using a very old and ancient, tried and tested method of picking the winner.  All entries will go in a hat and my lovely neighbor next door will pick a winner!  I will announce the winner on here on Wednesday, don't forget to let me have your e-mail address so I can contact you for a shipping address!

Good Luck xoxoxo