Who is stealing the time?

Goodly morning peeps
Blink and a week has disappeared, well that's what it feels like to me at the moment. I guess with all the birthdays and stuff it's been a bit crazy here. Not helped by having to drive up to Liverpool on Sunday to collect Alyssa and her luggage and drive back the same day, over 540 miles in one day is a lot of miles for my poor old legs. Did sneak an ice cream down at Crosby Beach though; wasn't going to let the wind and cold deter me!

 Still I have FINALLY managed to finish something to share with you today. Some things just take longer to visualize and then make I find. Worth it though.
So, here is what I've been busy with, in between other stuff. (Photo Heavy warning!)
I started with one of my Ancient book kits and for the front cover I used PaperArtsy Grunge paste and my Winged Design Mask to add some texture to the base and top elements and let dry before adding various colours of Treasure Gold to them. The middle section was painted black and stamped in Brilliance ink which then creates a nice "bridge" between the layers.

 I do love the spine, but more on that later.... and the pages are fun too.....

 I decided to keep the back cover more simple and didn't use the elements that are included in the kit. It still looks great and the advantage is that you can cut another couple of pieces of chipboard to A5 and make another book with those elements so you get extra value.

 So, the spine. I used strips of black leather for my spine and wired the covers together to give extra support and interest. I also gave me the opportunity to attach embellishments like the key and tokens and because the leather is in strips I could thread some driftwood and feathers into it too.

 I coloured the key with some of the metallic Distress Paints to change the colour tones which worked really well.

 All the pages inside are hand made paper. All the white pages are the last of the papers that my father made for me so they are very special to me. The other inserts and pages are all different papers that I love for the textures and tones, all are handmade though which keeps cohesion in the book to me. You can see here that I've used skewers in the binding. I decided to do this because hand made papers can be fairly fragile so this way added a lot more strength to the binding which will ensure the pages can't tear out as easily (Well, that's the theory anyway!)

 I've got pages that are all different sizes, too so lots of opportunity for creative playtime while working on them. I've also sprayed Dylusions ink in Dirty Martini and Melted Chocolate around the page edges.

I've already made a start, this is the first page. My Dad made sure that all the paper he made was sized so I could write on it without the ink bleeding out which is great. I turned the little page into a pocket, added a feather to the front and slipped a tag inside.

 This side is still in progress but already I know I'm going to have a lot of fun with this book.

 I'm popping in tags and bits all over the place and I just love it and look forward to seeing how it will evolve.

Hope you're still there and that you haven't dozed off.Have yourselves a creative and fun day too.