Self Bound Album

I promised and here are the photos of the album I have made for my dad. He had better like it.

I made the cover of the album using cardboard that was around 1.5mm thick. It is actually made up of 5 different pieces to allow for movement.

The spine is fake leather. I have a lot lying around the house from the 80's when I used to make string puppet emu's out of sheep skin cut offs and leather. I used a wide ribbon to cover the edges and it has really added to the character of the album. Unfortunately it is difficult to find book binding metal corners. I used a thin pliable sticky metal (normally used in sealing glass slides) on the edges. Not quite the look I wanted but it helps protect the edges. Next time I have a better idea for finishing off the ribbon so I won't need the metal strips to prevent fraying.

The centrepiece on the front is a stamp that I embossed in copper and hand coloured with water colour crayons (they are soooooo good). On the back I have used rub on letters for my name and embossed an old camera in clear.

I am only going to show a couple of the pages that are in the album as there are too many to photograph. Below is the afternoon we went to the Royal Flying Doctor Service for a tour. On these pages I have chalked the outside of the page to highlight them. I have also used brads and embossing.

These next two pages are the superpit at Kalgoorlie. You stand there looking at the pit and see this miniature trucks and loaders going about their work. That is when you turn around and see the wheels behind you and half a scoop from a loader and you realise they aren't that small at all.

Once at a craft fair I saw a lady extending the scene of a photograph using hand drawn skills. She had two children in the photograph sitting on a river bank. She extended the landscape of the photograph. It was very effective but obviously requires skill in drawing. I managed to do a tire at least.

I hunted everywhere for fly stickers and finally found them. The flies were always bugging dad so I put a few of them here and there in the Album. On the page below and the one above I made the photographs age by rubbing sandpaper over them. It is quite effective on the right photograph. I don't know if you can see it in the photo though.

The Gold Pour is always interesting to watch. I have used eyelets, brads, ribbon, a spiral embellishment, and I cut out the lettering on a cricket machine.

This has to be my favourite photo of dad. He is standing in the Garden of Remembrance at the Mining Hall of Fame in Kalgoorlie. It is a Chinese garden out in the desert. Works well, like a little oasis. The paper I used is left over from Novi's engagement party album. The fish is actually imprinted on one of the pages so I cut it out. The one on this page was actually stamped through the cut out that I did and then I put clear embossing powder on it. I put the fish there because there were quite a few in the water.

On the way back from Kalgoorlie is the Ettamogah Pub. For those non Australians who read this, the Ettamogah Pub was originally a cartoon strip in the newspaper. It was so popular that there is now a pub in almost every state. It features the slanty walls and the truck on the roof just like in the cartoon. Not that you can see but I used the cuttlebug to emboss the red frame around the writing.

The main reason dad came for a visit was to see the Red Bull Air Race. The final is held here in Perth.

I took so many photographs of planes in the air and then dad said, "only send the photographs where there is something in the background." So I had to do something with all the photos of planes just in the air. I bought myself a chipboard set that is a frame in which you can push out 12 small squares. Some of the photos are flush to the page while others I have glued to the chipboard square so that they were raised up. Those one still sat flush with the frame itself and there really wasn't any clarity in the dimension so I used magic mount to make the photo's on the board itself stand higher than the frame.

It is actually very affective when you look at it. I tried to take different photographs that would show the layering. The frame itself took a while to emboss. I used a thick black powder and did about three layers.

This is one of my favourite photographs. It took patience but eventually a plane went near the moon. The plane that is traveling across the page with the jet stream, is one of the photos that had no background. In fact it is a Japanese fighter plane (not sure which war). You can't see it but I have raised it up using the magic mount. I have done this with many of the pages that have layered photos

Dad loved my car so much that I thought I should give him a photograph of it. These last two pages are more the girly type of scrap booking (somehow flowers and heavy machinery just don't mix, unless said machinery is rusting in a field full of wildflowers). I also put a photo of myself with Tessa. It is the nicest photo I have of myself but it is a couple of years old.

Well that is my album. Mandy saw me making the cover and now would like me to teach her and some others how to do it. Those of you who are near me who want to learn, please let me know. I will work out the cost of a pack and then a time we can all get together.