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I know it's well past Christmas but Anne and I celebrate our birthdays and Christmas "whenever". As in whenever we have our stuff together. This date is even more fluid when handmade gifts are involved! I finally finished her gifts last week.
Anne loves anything with a skull motif. All of her gifts last year had skull motifs and I thought I was done with skulls until I saw Lynn K's Skully Flowers and pile-o-skullies thermofax screens. I had so much fun using her sunflower screen on these projects, that I decided to have another skull Christmas for Anne. She loved the notebook cover that I did with the sunflower but she wanted a large notebook cover with the pockets for her Blackberry and some pens.
This is what I came up with. Some of the fabric pieces were screen printed with ink and some with with Decolourant. All of the fabrics are from the current palette, Virginia Creeper. I use my Droid to size the pocket and place the Velcro for the closure. I used Susan Cleveland's Piping Hot Binding tool for the red piping.
Here's the back view. Yes, the skull is a little off center. I generally don't spend a lot of time planning these projects. First I did the screen printing and screen discharging and then just started putting the book together. That's just where that skull was positioned on the fabric. I like for these book covers to be a little serendipitous. Can you see how the fabric on the opening edge is screen with gray skulls on the gray fabric? I really liked that effect. I used the same gray ink on all of the painted fabrics.
Of course, there were scraps left over and I had to use them!
So she also gets some notecards and a Droid case. I screen printed some little skulls on the cards and then fused on some fabric scraps. They were kind of "meh" at that point so I started looking through my trims and found these fusible daisies to finish them off.
She can store her work Blackberry in the notebook but she also has a Droid for her personal email and I promised to make her a Droid case months ago. It turns out that I was waiting for just the right fabric! I discharged a small piece of black with the little skulls and I used my tutorial to make the case. But the best part is the back.
I had also discharged one of the large skull images and it was perfect for the back. It makes me smile every time I see it! I line my Droid cases with eyeglass cleaner cloth so that the screen is kept clean.
Soooo Cool! Love it! Do you have a pattern for the notebook. I'd like to make one (try that is)
Posted by: Carol | January 11, 2011 at 01:54 PM
Love the skull fabric. So great that you personalized something useful for your friend. I am wondering if you have a photo of the notebook open? I am a little confused about what you made. Does it cover a notepad of paper or a notebook? Thanks!
Posted by: JayeL | January 11, 2011 at 02:31 PM
Those turned out great - she'll love them.
Posted by: Ruth Lane | January 11, 2011 at 07:20 PM
cute!
Posted by: Deb Levy | January 11, 2011 at 08:22 PM
Oooooo...how stinkin' cool is that! I LOVE IT! When my back is 100% can we play at some screen printing with the skullies? PUHLEEZ!!!!!
Posted by: Cindy Is Crafty | January 11, 2011 at 08:46 PM
Very nice! Love the skulls!
Posted by: patty | January 12, 2011 at 07:30 AM
Vicki--What perfect and thoughtful gifts for your skull-loving friend! :)
Your post left me wondering, though. Is eyeglass cleaning cloth something that you can buy by the yard?!?! I've never seen it. Is it readily available? Thanks--
Posted by: Heather Woollove | January 12, 2011 at 07:44 AM
Totally fun! They look great!
Posted by: Summerset | January 12, 2011 at 08:29 PM
love all those skull themed projects. I bet your friend Anne was over the moon to receive them :)
Posted by: Angela | January 13, 2011 at 11:53 AM