The next 4 pages journey through some Celtic images. I ended up going with green and gold on all of them. I didn't really plan it that way, but hey, green is my favorite color, so alright.

 I got that Irish paper awhile ago, and this was a great use for it. Those are "charm pin up brads" that ribbon loops through the hold the doors closed.

This is the story of the Children of Lir, who were turned into swans for 900 years. It's an Irish story. I printed it on parchment paper, stamped and embossed the image, and added that lens on a bit of ribbon. The lens was a flea market find, from the Fremont Sunday Market. I'd been waiting for a good opportunity to use it. It's held on with a safety pin from the Tim Holtz line.
Next up is a stamp image you cannot see here. It is embossed in gold and my camera refused to take a good picture, so sorry! You'll just have to see it in person!

The background is corrugated black paper that I sanded for a nice distressed look. I decoupaged torn paper on some corners and added embellishments. The buttons are a nice new metal product that I found at Michael's the other day. The buckle on the ribbon is something I've been wanting to use for a long while, and the charms are from my stash.

This page has a pleated ribbon that I saw somewhere and was trying to reproduce, with less-than happy results. oh well, it looks grungey  enough anyway. See how the green paper on the card and the gold paper on the background and pocket are the same, just different colors? Cool, huh?
The card in the pocket is a never-ending card, from another youtube tutorial. It has an assortment of my Celtic carves in it. 
I'm yawning, so that's it for today. I'll pick up next time with the next page.

From Autumn on to Winter! Yes, it's a little twisted to have one page be all goth-y and the next have Bumble, from Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, but hey, it's my book.

Torn paper make up the hill, flocking on Bumble to make him fuzzy, and snowflakes in the background. Bumble is also holding a snowflake which is a separate stamp, the Celtic Snowflake, which I tried (and failed) to do in white ink with kaleidoscope embossing powder and had to go over it with glue and glitter. Yes, that mini thermometer does actually work. I got it at Stampdoodle when I lived in Bellingham.
The next page is an attempt to display a few more stamps on one page and the stamps from both these pages are in a separate location in the suitcase, apart from the book.

It's called a "Waterfall card." You pull the ribbon pull and it flips through the pages. Cool, huh? I learned how to make it from Youtube: here and a blog: here.

I started out making the book from the back, with the Virgin of Guadalupe page. I suppose it makes sense now to look at the book chronologically. I didn't realize this until recently, but I guess it starts off kind of grim. The first page is supposed to be Autumn-like, but that got nixed in favor of going for straight-up Goth. What is more Goth than Death and Poe? As in, Death, from the Sandman comics, and Poe, Edgar Allen.

I did the background a bit grungey, kinda like the comic's style. The black lace is actually a bit of tatting I did awhile back. The pocket with the skull zipper-pull is made of suede paper and a small zipper. Here's a better picture, although overexposed...

you get the idea, though? Figuring out how to do that pocket was a bit of a $%&, so I did an accordian fold on the left side and brads to keep it in place.

At the bottom, the niche has a swivel opening. Here's the back:

The brad lets it swing into place.
Here's the Poe page, with my stamp of the Raven. The background is the poem, "The Raven" and I made a turn-dial that says "Nevermore" in different fonts no matter how you turn it, because...the raven you see...just keeps saying "nevermore."

Okay, anyway, I painted the wood key and lock embellishment, distressed them, did the black netting, and attached the feather. My daughter says the black tulle makes it look too wedding-y. Weeelllll, considering the subject of the poem and what happened with Lenore, I think that's appropriate. Goth!

Sorry it's been a while. I've been working on the actual book rather than blogging about it. *gasp*
Quite a bit has happened. I'm actually done with the book now! (cue fireworks and Beethoven) I've also upgraded the suitcase. It was becoming quite apparent that not everything was going to fit the suitcase nicely, so I visited Goodwill for a vintage suitcase, got some new travel labels, and moved in. Although, that meant I could include *more* stamps, and make the book bulkier, and, and, and!
So, the book doesn't actually close any more. Not that I thought it would, after a point, but this is a bit bulkier than I was hoping for:

 Everything fits in the new, larger suitcase (pictures to come later), but now I have to figure out how to strap everything in so they don't move around and get messed up when in transit. Right now, I've used up my allotment of creative problem-solving, and need to brainstorm solutions with some friends.
Now for some pictures...

This is what the Virgin of Guadalupe page looks like now. Those are ribbon roses (purchased) around the image. I stamped the image on a sheet of aluminum, embossed it with a tool, painted in the image with enamels, and painted the background with alcohol inks. It's mounted on suede paper and those are upholstery nails attaching the left side, so that it swings open. The brass milagros on the right side are handles...

...so you can slide open the top to where the stamp is stored in a niche.

I haven't been happy with the last page, the Virgen de Guadalupe page. The red paper is dull, the doors don't work well, and I don't know how to do the closure on them.
I recently got a cool book at Powell's on a trip to Portland, Interactive Art Workshop by Kim Rae Nugent, and it has some fabulous ideas for how to tackle the doors and closures for this project. Normally I'd have tons of things for closures, but I'm trying to keep the book as flat as possible so it'll fit in the suitcase along with everything else. The Nugent book shows ways to do sliding doors and such, which don't require adding bulk to the book.
Here is what the Virgen page looked like mid-tear out:

There is one of the niches that is particularly large and goes close to the spine of the book. It keeps coming unstuck each time I turn the "page," so I started thinking on a solution to it. I decided to pierce holes in the block of pages to sew bookbinding thread through and hold the stack together. I used a power drill and a 1/32 drill bit to make the holes, glued the fabric-covered panel in, then used an awl to make the holes all match up. It worked pretty good, and I went back through with a gold thread to make it more decorative.

I covered the door with fabric also and attached some brass hinges. For the closure, I wanted to use a pretty green leaf button, so I used the awl to make holes through which the sew the button. Then I put a thin elastic loop on the door to go around the button.

I also needed to make some drawers to hold stamps which will be accessed from the side of the book. I usually would use Altoid tins for this, but they are too deep and were taking up 1/3 of the thickness of the book. Cereal boxes folded into flat boxes and covered with paper work fine.

They go in the side of the book. See the gap where one will slide in on the book at the bottom of the stack?

The next step was to start cutting the niches for where the stamps will go. I'm learning a lot this time about the value of sharp blades. A few times, the dull blade was pulling on the paper and causing it to rip rather than a nice clean cut. 

This is also my first time using gel glue. I'm pretty happy with it. 

So the really tricky part about this book is that it will have many thin niches, rather than one big one attached to the back of the book. Some will need to be accessed from both sides (this will make more sense later.) I've one ever done a book with one main niche and then another one half-way though, and the book nearly came apart. This may not work, it's an experiment for sure. 

I'm cutting all of the niches at the start, since it's a mess to cut one after a further page has contents, is collaged, etc. The varying sizes are based on the sizes of the stamps that will go into that niche.

I have also been gathering materials for the book. Mostly the pages will be like the LTCs with more embellishment and on a larger scale. A lot of the collage materials, ephemera, etc. I already had. Organizing everything so that I can plan layouts has been the major challenge. This is one solution I have come up with:

Keeping track of all the little pieces is also hard, so I am trying plastic baggies this time around. We'll see how it goes.
I forgot to mention - an early stage of the book is covering it. I wanted a look of something tough but well traveled, so I got a leather coat at Goodwill, cut it up, and used the largest piece to cover the book. It has quite a nice look as a result. I also used some Tim Holz brass corner embellishments to be corner protectors.

The Suitcase Project, aka Altered Book, aka A Home for my LTC Stamps

So I have a lot of stamps that I've carved for making LTCs, but they are my best carvings and I'm not willing to plant them. However, they just sit in an old Walker Shortbread tin doing nothing otherwise. Therefore! I am making an altered book that will travel in a wood suitcase to Letterboxing gatherings with me.

I will chronicle the process here...

I made the suitcase about a year ago.

It is a wooden suitcase styled box from the Redmond Ben Franklin. I got sticker paper from Stampdoodle in Bellingham and printed vintage travel labels (I love Google Images!) on my ink jet. After I painted the box and stuck labels all over, I made a BIG MISTAKE. I wanted to seal the whole thing and used Mod Podge, painting it on. Well, it lifted the ink and smeared it around somewhat. As you can tell, it wasn't so bad, it maybe even aged the look a bit, but I panicked a bit there.
So the book itself is, yes, a Physics textbook. St. Vincent dePaul and Goodwill are great sources for cheap books. I usually shop purely based on size of the book (this one needed to be big). I think this one was about a dollar or two. Bonus is the cool text with formulas and charts and such. I'll have to find ways to integrate some of the book's original pages into my overall design.

continuation of clues for Happy Birthday Deribugs:
90..4.