Books

This week on Frosted Designs I am host another challenge.  When coming up with this challenge I wanted to really challenge our followers and step just a little outside the box.  So I turned to my favorite pastime and that is reading books.  I love to read and I have been an avid reader since I was a little kid.  The books I read are very much interwoven into the fabric and story of my life.  So this week everyone is supposed to use a book to inspire their project.  Head on over and see all the great projects and learn about some great books.  Plus check out the new prize for the month of October!

Anyway...On to my project.  This week I chose the Dark Tower Series by Stephen King as my inspiration.  This series of 7 books is are some of my favorites.  I am currently re-reading them and will probably do so again countless times over my (hopefully long) life.  They are full of suspense, excitement, love, determination, sadness, intrigue, etc.  I just honestly can't say enough good things about these books.  I will admit that they get off to a bit of a slow start with book 1 (gotta cut Mr. King a break as he was only 19 when he wrote it), but if you make it past that you won't regret it.  So, my project...

First I will start with the title.  "The world has moved on " is a phrase that is used repeatedly in the books.  In the story the world has changed rapidly and time has gone a little funny.  Things just aren't quite as they seem.  I have used the title (and the hidden journaling) to express how much my "world" has moved on since the time of this picture.  I was only 20 or so at that time and things sure have changed.

For the overall style of the page I used Steampunk.  I felt it really fit well with the story as the story has a curious mix of old and new.  It isn't Victorian, but rather more Western so I shifted the focus of the Steampunk a little to be more western.  I once again used the new Graphic 45 paper, Steampunk Debutante, to make this page.

Next are the roses and the 1 3D red rose.  Roses were a big part of the story, but there is a single, special rose in the book.  It is almost a character in and of itself at times.  It holds the world and it has a huge draw over many of the characters.

The train is also in the 3rd and 4th books.  He is called "Charlie the Choo Choo" or "Blaine".  He is a train with superior knowledge who likes riddles and is a serious obstacle of the 5 main characters.

The bear is to represent the character, Shardik.  He is an guardian from the old ones and is a giant cyborg of sorts.  He is part machine and part flesh.  That is why I put the gears and cogs over the bear to show that.

Finally the number 19 is in the story a lot.  It holds a special significance that I believe comes from the fact that Stephen King was only 19 when he started writing this story. 

All in all I hope you enjoy the page and are inspired by the challenge.  I have a great time working on this layout.  Get busy crafting and reading!

Capturing Mountains

I recently did a swap on a non-crafting related message board that I belong to.  The swap was to exchange local goodies to help someone learn about your area of the country.  Most people were sending food related items in their swap, but I was having some difficulty coming up with anything for Colorado.  We don't really have a local food unless you want to count Rocky Mountain Oysters and I wasn't too keen on sending those to my unsuspecting swap buddy.  That would just be kind of cruel.  I did end up sending some food from local all natural food companies here in Colorado, but I didn't think that was enough.  One thing that Colorado is really know for is our gorgeous mountains.  We are VERY proud of our mountains and pretty much think that they make Colorado on of the prettiest places on Earth.  So I wanted to send something that represented the mountains, but not just a photo or a rock.  What's a girl to do?  I finally figured it out... Why not make a set of blank cards with a mountain theme and some natural hand made papers.  So I set to work.  I had some hand made paper that I have had sitting around for years that I broke out and I also broke out my Bosskut Gazelle to cut out some leaves and mountain shapes.  I decided the best thing to do to make the mountains was to create a stencil with my Gazzelle and spray them on with Glimmer Mist.  I am really happy with how they turned out and I hope my swap buddy enjoys the cards.