Creating shouldn't be so difficult...it never used to be

....but this CJ entry has taken me nigh on a week, and it really shouldn't have taken anywhere near that long!

Anyway, it's done now :)

This is my entry in Lori's book in the Tattoo CJ circle. Her theme is "the good, the bad and the ugly" - great fun theme - it gave me an excuse to scour the net for some really naaaasty tattoos, and also some really amazingly wonderful ones.


The actual layout uses all sorts of random stuff I had lying about - the fabulous leg was cut out of a tattoo mag; the black netting used to add a bit of texture to the background, while also toning down the bold pattern of the floral paper underneath, was cut out of an old pair of Connor's tracksuit bottoms lol; and the black tape around the edges of the pages is hockey tape - which is JUST like 7 Gypsies bookbinding tape but about a tenth of the price :)

I got the gorgeous wooden swallows from Etsy.



The text up in the top right hand corner (which is somewhat less violently pink in real life, the flash messes with it) was generated with an Around The Block label machine - just like an old fashioned Dymo but with cooler fonts



I made my leggy lady a footrest from red felt, with stamped calico labels for three little accordion books - these contain photos of good, bad, and ugly tattoos I had found on my Google expedition. I had to hand sew this onto the paper and mesh backing, because my sewing machine wasn't having any of it.

The accordion book covers were made with some leather-style vinyl I picked up in the scrapstore years ago. It was white, but I coloured it with red and black alcohol inks, and perforated it around the borders of each cover with a tracing wheel, which you can't really see in the pics, but it makes them look quite convincing IRL.


The accordion books look like this ^ once opened.

A closer look at the contents of the three books is below:

The good


The bad


The ugly


So that's one CJ down 2 more to go in the next couple of weeks - it's a good job I have deadlines because it is keeping me making stuff even when I'm not really in the mood for it. I know I would be really frustrated with myself if I let myself stop altogether.