Using Christmas cards in painting projects.

Well pleased to be writing this blog, illness has been the only thing keeping me from completing this project, back on track pleased to say.

 

Okay, remember the Christmas cards I saved?, well I managed to paint mine with gesso, two coats each side, dry well.

 

 

I chose 7 cards of varied sizes, one large one for the cover this had an embossed heart on the front that I rather liked, it was a little two long so after choosing my other cards for the inside I cut it down slightly. if you have to do this measure it before you attempt cutting, you want it to be nice and straight.

 

The other 6 cards I arranged from largest to smallest, simply because it made it easy to photograph to show you how I put the art book together. You can arrange them anyway you like.

 

make sure that the centre of each card is straight.

 

This shows the bottom edge

 

 

See how the smaller cards are in the middle, some are longer.

 

Top edge,s.

 

Now I made three holes in the folded edge of the smallest card, through all the thickness of the cards. This first one in the middle and then 1 above and 1 below, make sure they are in a straight line and go all the way through all the middle of the other cards, otherwise you will have a crooked book. 

 

 

 

This is the cotton crochet thread that I used to sew the book together. you could use string or embroidery thread as long as it is strong enough to hold together. Measure the cotton 3 times as long as the book this should be enough to use.

 

 

Decide if you would like the string to finish in the middle of the book as I have done (start on the inside)

or finish on the outside to attach beads or charms on. (start on the outside)

 

As my book; thread the needle and starting in the middle of the book sew  the cotton through the centre hole to the outside of the cover, leave a god bit of cotton on the inside. Now thread the cotton through the top hole it should now be back into the middle of the book. Now thread the needle through the bottom hole, (see the photo above) out to the cover.

 

 

 

 

The last thing is to thread through the middle hole from the outside into the middle of the book, make sure that this end of the thread is on the other side of the middle cotton. Also make sure that this is pulled tight enough to hold the book but not tight enough to tear the cards.

 

 

 

Still with the two ends one each side of the middle cotton, tie twice again make sure that this is not loose, the pages should not move around, cut the cotton as shown above.

 

If you wanted the long ends to add beads make sure you start on the outside, still tie a double knot, but leave the long strings to dangle so you can decorate later.

 

 

This is the finished book. I will be decorating this later using acrylics and maybe some Folk Art designs. I will let you know how I go and share some pages with you.

You may use any colour on your backgrounds depending on what you wish to paint in your book or you may wish to use mixed media, collage, scrapbook or journaling!

If you keep to a simple colour scheme all the pages will complement each other especially if you have used different size cards as I have used. Hope you have Fun.