Sunday, May 3, 2015

Encyclopaedia Britannia





















I was the last one to work in Amy's book for this Altered Book Round Robin.  When I received the book, I was astounded at all of the amazing spreads that the artists before me had contributed to this book!  It had me quite stumped for some time to come up with an idea that had not already been done and what technique I would use...

I thought about doing something on the crown jewels but could not find the components to put together a spread that I was happy with. I considered a spread showcasing the Jaguar, Britain's luxury car (my hubby's favorite!)...I even thought about doing something in honor of the new Princess of Cambridge recently born to Prince William and Kate, but none of those ideas were giving me a clear vision.

Then I started going through my travel files.  We had visited London (Ireland and Scotland) back in 2009 and I gathered lots of ephemera on that trip.  I wondered if any of it would spark an idea for my spread.  To my surprise, I had collected lots of postcards with typical London scenes.  Then it came to me, I would do a flag pull-out to show off London's famous landmarks.

I started with an extended accordion fold to serve as the base of my pull-out.  I then cut the postcards down to 4" x 1 1/2" sized flags and made them two-sided.  I affixed a total of 35 flags to the accordion base to create my flag pull-out.

I discovered a beautiful London-themed scrapbook page and decided it would make a nice background for the accordion pull-out.  I anchored the base of the accordion by cutting a slit in the left side page and secured it with tape before gluing the adjacent page to the back.  Next, I had to fashion a pull device for the accordion.  After surveying my stash of ribbons, I selected a gold cord and made a tassel from it.  For a finishing touch, I added a fleur-de-lis charm to the tassel.

In the top picture, you can see who the accordion fold sits flat when the book is in the closed position.  Once opened, you can use the tassel to pull the accordion open to the right to reveal the 35 flags with London sights. 

2 comments:

  1. Ditto above! This is a spectacular spread, beautilfully executed! I bet it made Amy squeal with delight when she received her book.

    ReplyDelete