Tiddly Tuesday! Art Journal Style

Greetings All and Happy Tiddly Tuesday!!  I will first and foremost apologize for my bloggy absence this last week.  My house has been hit with a very fierce head cold!!  It's been around us for a month!!  First my DD, then DH, then DS..and last but not least...MOI!!  Jeesh...so as much as I've been thinking creatively this last week it's been very hard to drag myself to my desk which I miss OH SO MUCH!!  But, I was able to get my paper bag book started for my darling son!!  My dear friend Joanne did a wonderful video tutorial here on how to make these darling paper bag books.  I've had a few books done for a while and needed just the right reason to start creating with one!  This and NEXT week's challenge here at Tiddly Inks is to make a creation that has an art journal vibe to it.  This is something that I LOVE to do but I find very challenging.  I'm not entirely sure why but I struggle.  

I knew that I wanted to make a mini book for my son and I had the perfect picture to match the image that I love to use representing my son!  I printed out Christy's Geekatude (love him!) and colored him with my Copics.  My son will often bust out a tie over a t-shirt for school which always makes me giggle.  And recently we have started letting our children use older iPods with a mix that I made for them having suitable music for them on it, which were key during the couple of days we were sans power after Hurricane Irene.  So between the tie and the headphones I could not RESIST pairing the above photo of my son with Christy's image. For page one, I used the photo of my son, which I trimmed out and made into a "flap" of sorts.  My kids have always adored flap books so I figured why not incorporate that theme here!  The photo of my son is held with a piece of scrap cardstock, folded and attached to the photo and then the book.  He's held in place with a velcro dot.  I used all kinds of bits and bobs for texture and visual interest behind the photo.  There's a little pocket behind my denim "fringe" that holds a small card with a list of my favorite qualities that my son possesses.  It's there to remind him of how amazing he is.  =)  I added a tiny crown that I'd stamped and trimmed out and popped on top of his fabulous mop of hair. 

My second page features Christy's Geekatude. As you can see, I added the same crown on top of his head that I'd added to my son's head in the first page.  I used a Tiddly Ink skully border for my background which I stamped over with background stamps from Smeared Ink.  I used my circle nesties to matte Geekatude.  I used a rhinestone circle and a pin to further embellish my page.

click to enlarge!

I do hope you come play with us over the next two weeks over at the Tiddly Ink Challenge Blog!!