Anything Book Tip: Adding A Photo Group

I'm currently working on a special Anything Book of my own. My book is Mermaid, and it is recording my personal and business transformation. What I'm sharing today comes from my personal book.

This week, I visited my local IKEA and ended up taking a series of pictures that I wanted to add to my Anything Book as a group. I could have added them as a gallery and take up a whole page. But I decided I wanted to try something different.

So I got the idea to use an IKEA showroom map brochure (tri-fold) to hold these pictures together. They are free and available in the store.

I used a showroom floor mpa from IKEA to create a mini book inside my Mermaid Anything Book (art journal).

First, I trimmed the brochure down to just under 6 inches, the height of my Anything Book pages. Then I glued it into the book at the outer edge of a page.

Next, I started adding the photos. I created both wallet size and 2x2 inch sizes of the photos. I laid them out and started looking for items to fill in between them. Mostly, I used postage stamps and matchbook covers because they are about the same size and my photos. I also added in some washi tape and I made a tab from some scrap paper. It's an art journal, so anything goes!

Here's what the finished mini book looks like:

The IKEA brochure installed as a mini book at the outer edge of a page.

Here's the front of the brochure covered with photos, stamps, washi tape and a matchbook cover. If you pull on the tab, the accordian fold opens up to show you all three panels.

The IKEA brochure opened up to show all of the images inside.

I chose items with the lime green color of my top for extra fun. As you can see, I took some silly pictures of my shoes on the escalator and at one of the ubiquitous blue arrows located throughout the store.

I called this my Cheeky Monkey day because I felt silly taking pictures of myself in the mirror front of various cabinets (and in one showroom mirror). But once I started taking them, I was on a roll.

On the back side, I wrote the story of this day and why I was taking the pictures.

The back side of my mini book has my journaling about this day and these pictures.

You might want to use this idea for a visit to a park, attending an event, or anything else that provides a brochure. By using the brochure as the basis for the mini book, it ties together the photos with the place. I covered the brochure with image, but you could strategically place them so that your brochure is still readable. There are no rules! Do what seems good to you.

Anything Books tend to get bulky at the rings. So by adding some bulk to the outer edge of the page, it helps to balance out the thickness of the book. It also keeps from adding even more bulk to the ring area.

I loved this idea so much that I immediately added more brochures to the edges of several unfinished pages. These are still empty. But when I fill them, I'll share them here.

You can do this! You can create a beautiful record of your normal, everyday life with an Anything book. Check out my Etsy store for more information about my Anything Books. An Anything Book is an art journal where you add your own art or use it as a scrapbook of your daily living.

Valentine's Day Commision

A friend of mine commissioned me to make an Anything Book for her husband for Valentine's Day. Of course, I was thrilled to help her out.

Here's the cover with the ring charm and book belt.

He's a huge Dr. Pepper fan, so I started out with a cover made from a fridge box. She told me a few of his favorite things and that his favorite color is green. So with that jumping off point, I went through my stash.

I added a green book belt to hold the pages together while he carries his journal around with him. As it gets filled up with items and grows bulky, the book belt will help to hold his treasures inside and keep them safe.

A local area map lets an IKEA ad peek out and a luggage tag overlays a patterned page page.

Normally, I love the mish mash of colors, but it was a lot of fun to see what I could do focused around a single color. I love the way the map colors pull out the colors of the striped paper (above).

A Russian postage stamp pulls out the blue distressing on this polka dot paper.

The recipeint is a journal keeper, so I added in extra journaling sections of blank pages. The vertical shape makes this Anything Book perfect for someone who like to write a lot. With this shape, it's more like writing in a tablet. You can keep a journal in a horizontal Anything Book, of course, but it's a different writing experience. And I'm all for mixing up experiences, too.

A green paint chip adorned with baker's twine hides part of an Apple advertisement.

Some company brochures and marketing materials are so beautiful that I love to incorporate them into the Anything Books. Apple is one of those companies. The green paint chip pops against this ad and the baker's twine adds a touch of elegance.

In the center you can see the rich assortment of materials that went into this Anything Book. 

Photos like this of the depth of the book are my favorites. I love seeing the mix of materials that came together for this book. I also love the variety of materials that made up the page tabs on this book (below).

An outdated London travel guide adds a reminder of the recipient's favorite place to visit.

Her husband love to visit London, so I added in a page from an outdated London travel guide for some memory triggers. There wasn't much green on this page, so I added a paper strip to the bottom of the page, attached with washi tape that brings the brown into the green area.

An envelope with a string closure provides a safe place to tuck away small treasures.

I have a few favorite books that I like to use. On the left is a page from a mythology book that is filled with interesting illustrations. Even the printed pages are beautifully laid out. The variety of colors makes it easy to accent the green in this two-page spread.

This Anything Book has its unique bar code identifier and its name on the back cover.

Inside this book, I found the word "Thames" which is the name of the river that flows through London. So I named this Anything Book: Thames. Like all Anything Books, it has a bar code with a unique identifier on the back, along with my signature.

I got the sweetest note back from my friend after her husband received his gift. I'm honored to have a small part in helping her celebrate her love and her marriage.

Would you like to commission an Anything Book for a special person or event in your life? Check out my Etsy store for details.

Project Update: Wedding Present Almost Finished

For many weeks, I've had a partially completed wedding gift for my sister's step daughter on my worktable. The background has been finished for a while, but each time I would sit down to finish it, I found myself unhappy with the embellishments and would set it aside. On Friday, I realized it has been a whole month since the wedding, and that I needed to push myself a bit to finish it up.

The project is based on an IKEA mirror covered with patterned paper. I'm using a piece of glass over the picture. This is a picture I took of the happy couple a year ago. They can substitute a wedding picture in its place.

I purchased a 7 Gypsies clip to use to hold the glass and photo in place. I didn't believe a glue would hold the metal clip (with its spring) to the wood, but several people told me Ultimate would work. So I tried it. It not only didn't work, the glue adhered the paper background to the metal clip, separating it from the wooden substrata, creating a bit of a mess. I ended up using two screws, smashing my thumb in the process. But it holds beautifully and the repairs underneath are invisible. (I'm not naming the names of the people who told me this would work. You know who you are!)

Here is the project before the glue disaster (and subsequent screwing) with the word tiles roughly in place. I removed the glass from the photo because of the glare from the flash.



After getting the clip mounted, I was so excited about the project's momentum that I pulled out everything I had considered to use as embellishment. In the midst of this, I was invited to come and work at Melissa's house. In spite of technology problems, cell phone problems, and even GPS problems, I managed to arrive (somewhat late) and work on the project. After a few hours of snipping away at beautiful fake red roses, stringing seed beads and other beads to a very thin wire, and tying a huge bow with French wired ribbon, the project was nearly completed.



I wanted to give the glue 24 hours to dry before I finished fussing with the project. I need to trim the ribbon tails, turn the P into an R, and add a hanger on the back. (Did you catch that in the photo?) I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. If I was starting over, there are changes I would make.

1. I thought the letters would look better if the spacing wasn't so perfect, but I'm not quite happy with the placement I used.

2. I would rework the rose placement to make it higher. The rose seems to hang a bit low over the photo, even though it is not significantly lower than just the clip. I tried to keep the clip mechanism easily accessible so they can change out the picture later.

3. I would rethink the amount of embellishment. I had planned for more embellishment, but decided to simplify. I like the addition of the beads strung into the ribbon, even with the addition of new colors. Perhaps with the rose higher, I could have included a bit more.

Overall, I'm pleased that I've created a memory art item that captures their engagement and will hold a wedding photo. I think they will really like it. I do like this framing option, using a clip to hold a sheet of glass, and will use it again.

Project: Tim Holtz Distress-a-polusa

[Note: I've updated the photo using my new Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W80]

I just got home from a fabulous class with Tim Holtz at Scrapbooks, Etc. I took a quick picture of my finished project with my cell phone, but it does no justice to the project. I'll retake the photo after I replace my digital camera.

The purpose of the class was to experiment with the distress product lines. And who better than Tim to teach them! The class was full, I heard there were 40 attendees and a waiting list. I went in with high expectations, and the class exceeded them all.

First, Tim is great. He's down-to-earth, a guy who is living his passion in life. His passion is contagious. His teaching style is laid back, and he knows how to plan a class. It's the first project I've ever finished in a class! He totally tells you to do anything, do random things, and not to overthink it all. He's friendly and accessible. And did I mention that his projects totally rock! If you ever get a chance to take a class with Tim, do it.

The project is based on a 10" IKEA mirror, just like the one on my studio worktable for the wedding project. We were given a series of chipboard pieces and acrylic shapes from his Fragements line. We distressed each one, and they got glued to the mirror in a patchwork pattern. Then, we attached bits of found objects to the tops of them.

The heart of the project is the chipboard pieces. They fell into three groups for distressing.

1) We used crackle paint on the largest pieces. When the crackle dried, we used distress inks over the top. The crackle colors were a bit too pure for my liking, so I was thrilled to see how totally the colors changed with the addition of a layer of ink. It's not so much the color of the ink that changed the crackle paint, it was the texture of the ink that changed the texture of the crackle paint more than the color impact. I wish my photo showed that kind of detail. All I can say is you have to try these paints and ink over them, even if you use the same color ink.

2) We used embossing powder on the smallest pieces. The distress embossing powder is different from regular powders because it has grains that are supposed to fall away to give the distressed look. So the color after embossing is splotchy. We next inked over these, and again, the ink changed the entire look of the pieces. It filled in the distressed splotches.

3) We inked the remaining pieces, and then used black archival ink to stamp on them. We didn't use the distress inks for this because the products would have blended together instead of giving a sharp black stamp image.

We next created the acrylic squares by gluing them to pieces of paper from Tim's discontinued ephemera paper line.

Once all of the pieces were crafted, we arranged them around the mirror using a template Tim gave us. We tweaked the placement by swapping out pieces of the same size and shape until we liked the layout. Next, we selected from the bag of found object goodies the items we wanted on the pieces, and arranged them around the mirror. This was a blast. The goodies included things like a game board spinner, a small lightbulb, pressed tin crown, game pieces, and a button Tim made to hand out to the class attendees, among other things.

As much fun as I had all of the way through, I thoroughly enjoyed gluing down the individual pieces. We used a Ranger product (I don't remember the name) but it is clear and dried very quickly.

It was fun to see what everyone else created. We had the same materials available to us, and they all look so different! I had Tim sign the back of mine, too! I can't wait to hang it up in the studio.