Lenna's Little Books

Lenna recently announced a new and exciting swap on her Creative Swaps site. It was for little books and if you're interested there is still plenty of time to sign up here. At first I wasn't sure if I would have either the time or the inclination to make Little Books but I did know that I wanted to have the PDF file about them with lots of information and instruction about how to make them that Lenna provides to each participant as part of the registration fee which, by the way, also includes the return postage, regardless of where you live.

But once I had downloaded it I found myself doing trials using plain copy paper. Well with a little bit of effort I could use painted paper so I made 3 A4 sheets using my Inktense pencils. They are a bit deceptive as the colour doesn't explode till you add water, for which I used a water brush. Then they are beautifully rich and I love using the same brush i.e. not cleaning in between while shifting from one colour to another so that the colours run into each other in a water colour way. Gorgeous.

Then with the help of Lenna's clear and excellent instructions I folded and cut till I had 3 little books at the ready. It's not a requirement of the swap that you decorate the books you make but for me that is the most fun part of making them so I got to work using both postage stamps and rubber stamps. The title for all the books is Ars Longa, Vita Brevis, which I translate from the Latin as Art lasts a long time, but life is short (Latin is a very concise language, just about the only thing I like about it, having been made to study it for 5 years).

The pages I'm showing you here come from each of the little books and above is the first and last page of one. On the last page I have used one of my Blipcards! As they have a thick quality I sewed them on. Something I also did with the pages of my book. You could, of course, use glue but I prefer sewing!

Here you can see how I used postage stamps and Cavallini vintage labels with butterflies and plants. They were outlined with pink gel pens.

I also used one of my most favourite texture stamps, bought in the children's department of Hobby Craft. It consists of tiny little dots and is a great way to unite the pages. I used it with both blue and red Staz-On inkpads.

Thank you to Lenna for coming up with another great swap idea and for encouraging me to take part. You were so right, I did enjoy myself no end!!

I also made a separate little book, specially as a hostess gift for Lenna herself but I'm keeping that one a surprise and won't show it here till it's in her hands! Sorry, Lenna!!!