Bad girls....burn in hell

I most certainly have been a bad girl - I've had this CJ for at leat three months, it might even be four! But hopefully not bad enough to suffer the fate of the "people under the stairs".

This is my final entry in the UKScrappers "take one stamp" CJ - and I'm going out with a bang as I think this is my favourite piece of them all.

This is my best friend Alison's journal. Shortly after launching this book into the world, she was taken seriously ill - and has been in hospital since February. I think this is the reason I have had such a mental block about working in the book - and why it has taken me so long. Looking at her work makes me so upset that she is stuck in hospital instead of stamping away merrily in her craft room - and I feel so helpless that I can't FIX her.

But I know that one thing that gives her a lift while she is holed up in there is seeing her CJs come home - so I just couldn't delay this book any longer....

And I hope I've done it justice.

The stamp we were given to work with was one of my buddy Michelle's Green Pepper Press beauties - the staircase from the Entrances plate:

As soon as I saw it, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it - a homage (or is it an homage? I never know...) to Wes Craven's classic 1991 comic horror movie, "The People Under The Stairs".

Alison's journal is an envelope book - so it was the perfect format for a "teaser and reveal" type piece.

This is the front of my envelope (note the little eyes in the dark under the staircase):



<---- close up of the dymo tape. HOW fab is that font? and look, it has a question mark too! If you are wondering how it was done, you need to be checking out the Around The Block website and ogling their "Ultimate Tape Writer Kit". It's so cooooool.


And this is the back - which adds nothing to the "story", I just thought the Queen and Co felt trim was purty :) (but it's BLOODY fiddly to use, it ended up stuck to itself, my fingers, the cat (well it would if I had a cat) - anything other than the blinking envelope!!!)



Inside the envelope is this insert:



The staircase as stamped wasn't as big as I needed it to be, so I stamped it twice and cut a couple of bits from the second copy to extend the stairs. Hopefully the join isn't too obvious. It's coloured in with watercolour pencils, and covered with Ranger crackle accents. The guys trapped under the stairs are a Stampotique stamp called "Three In A Round" - one of my favourites.



I'm really pleased with how the "wallpaper" turned out on the insert. This started out as plain white cardboard. I coloured it DTP with a mixture of Black Cherry Stazon and Cranberry Adirondack dye ink. Then I spritzed it generously over the top with red and purple glimmer mists. Once it had dried, I re spritzed it wih plain water, and then squished it in a damask patterned Cuttlebug embossing folder. I don't own a Cuttlebug, so I just rolled it with a rolling pin, and then sat it under a pile of books to dry, still in the folder. It works just as well, I think, here's a close up ----->

The back of the insert was far simpler, just a stamped quote from the movie, and some flames stippled through a stencil roughtly handcut from post it notes:



I hope none of the people yet to work on the CJ are intensely religious and easily offended :) Hopefully it's clear enough that I am quoting from a film, and haven't just gone frothing-at-the-mouth mad :)

I'm also hoping they don't sit on the CJ as long as I did, so that Alison will see it come home soon.....

sorry bessie!!!