Book of the Flowers

Hello everyone.  It's Alison (butterfly) here with a Book of the Flowers (any takers for the pun on the medieval Book of the Hours, then? - illuminated manuscripts to die for).

It's rusty, crackly, inky, glossy and made of beermats... what more could you possibly want?!

I started out with some blank beermats (coasters, if you prefer), and added torn book pages fairly randomly to each side.

Tissue tape was next, to add another bit of interest for the eye, and then a rough coat of gesso to soften the background text and images.

I used flower stamps from the Botanical Plate 1, as well as from Katy Fox's Encyclopaedia Botanica.

They're stamped in Sepia and Coffee Archival.

I gave them a gentle watercolour tinting with Distress Stains too, though I'm not sure that's still visible.

The final layer on the flowers was a thick layer of gloss glaze to give them a bit of a sheen.

I inked the edges of the pages with Vintage Photo and Gathered Twigs DIs, and added some Rock Candy Crackle Paint for texture.

Once that was dry, I inked the pages with various other DIs - Peacock Feathers is certainly in there, and Broken China, and I think Mowed Lawn, probably, too.

The quotes are stamped onto tea/coffee-stained tags, and layered onto the pages over some of my rusted muslin.  And I had fun doing some inky splatters too...  (You can see who said what at the foot of the post, if you're interested.)

The rusted muslin also takes centre stage on the front and back covers - a purely accidental floral background!

Where I rusted up the Idea-ology flowers, they left a masked version of themselves on the muslin, which seemed perfect to create the front cover.

I've added one of the Idea-ology Ornate Plates too, which has also had the rusting treatment (check out this post if you want to know more about that).

The back cover is made of some more rusted muslin, simply stuck onto the back of the coaster, and some rusted book rings bind the whole thing together.

For a more decorative fastening, I added some Distress Stain-dyed seam binding, and tied it in a big bow.

So that's your lot for today.  You've still got just about a week to join in with the August Challenge - Postcards, Travel and Holidays - here at The Artistic Stamper, so I'll hope to see you there... but for now I'll wish you a wonderful weekend, and happy crafting!

Quotes:
Flowers really do intoxicate me.
Vita Sackville-West

Just living is not enough - one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.
Hans Christian Andersen

Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair.
Susan Polis Schutz

Ingredients used:
Artistic Stamper stamps: Encyclopaedia Botanica; Botanical Plate 1
Distress Stains: Vintage Photo, Broken China, Faded Jeans, Tumbled Glass, Mowed Lawn, Peeled Paint
Distress Inks: Vintage Photo, Gathered Twigs, Peacock Feathers, Broken China, Mowed Lawn, Faded Jeans
Idea-ology: Ornate Plates
Tissue Tape: Sketchbook
Rock Candy Crackle Paint
Archival Ink: Sepia, Coffee
Manila tags
Seam binding
Multi-Medium Gloss
From stash: muslin, bookpages, beermats