Hello friends!
Happy Wednesday! Today I am Guest Designing over on the Funkie Junkie Challenge Blog where their current theme is Back To School! I gained my Guest Design spot after winning the Chillin’ in the Heat challenge a few weeks ago with my retro Polaroid beach scene page.
Today’s Art . . .
As I was thinking about the challenge brief, the idea of “an apple for the teacher” kept running through my head, and as I thought about the time of year, it being September etc, the idea of a pumpkin instead of an apple popped into my head and so I started to think what a pumpkin for the teacher might look like. From there the idea to make some kind of 3D or popup card took off and I decided to use book paper to make it since books and alphabets were suggestions for the challenge.
I used a Sizzix/Tim Holtz oval die to cut all my pumpkin pieces because I really wanted them to be accurately cut so they would fit together the way I wanted them to.
Yes I am using a Harry Potter book for this project. It is actually my favourite Harry Potter book from the series but it’s OK as I only paid a few pence for this copy in a charity shop, and I already have two pristine copies of my own that are perfectly safe. I originally was going to make it more like a popup card and put the pumpkin inside but then I wondered what I would do with the outside, so why not just put it on the outside and not have to worry about it! My little pumpkin book can be flicked through and read just like a real book if you felt like seeing what Harry and his friends are up to.
Before starting the project, I coloured a few pages using Distress Inks just to test out some colour options in case I wanted them to be more colourful but then changed my mind and chose to keep them uncoloured as all those pumpkin colours were reading as Halloween and not Back To School. So I assembled my pumpkin book pieces and then darkened the edges with Archival ink in dark brown, then I made my card base and used another page from the book to cover the front.
The page I used is actually about Harry meeting the Weasley family so they could catch the train to Hogwarts. I added some white gesso to the page to tone down the print then attached my 3D pumpkin to the bottom of the card. I drew on the pumpkin leaves and vines and then added some small word stickers to read “A pumpkin for the teacher.” The pumpkin “book” is made of pages involving a back to school feast in the great hall and so whoever receives this card can flick through the pumpkin pages to read little snippets about Harry and his friends at Hogwarts.
I was using a heavy book to hold everything in place while the glue dried and inside the book, I found some of these pressed leaves so I took some photos with them to see what they would look like. I had completely forgotten that I had pressed any leaves or that they were inside the book I was using. They would have been from last year just before the Maple lost all of its leaves.
I hope you can join in with the fun Back To School challenge – the link to the challenge is at the end of the post. I am also entering this card into a couple of other relevant challenges, details below.
Let me know what you think in the comments. As always, thanks for reading!
Ingredients
watercolour paper, book paper, sizzix/Tim Holtz oval die, archival ink, neocolours, stabilo-all, white gesso, gel medium, glue, word stickers, pitt artist pens,
Challenges
Funkie Junkie Challenge Blog – Back to School
SSS Monday Challenge – Die cuts – I used Sizzix/ Tim Holtz oval die set to cut out all my pumpkin pages
Country View Challenges – Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness – tis the season for pumpkins
Super make – really lovely design! Thanks for joining us at Countryview Challenges and good luck in the draw!