Tunnel Book: Itsy Bitsy

So Joggles.com decided to have a little sale on tunnel books. They make a chipboard book about 6" X 6" and laser cut a hole in each "page". The hole (either circle, square, or heart shaped) gets progressively larger as you turn each page to the back of the book creating a tunnel appearance. The sale is to promote a little "contest" where you can win a gift certificate to the store.

I was thinking maybe I could make one. I even finally finished it. The deadline was extended.
I don't much like the book I made. I mean, I like it mostly..

Well, I'll show you some pictures and we'll see what you think. Just as a disclaimer: I often write posts in which I am unsure if I truly like what I've created and this is one of them. It was an experiment with a new "canvas" and I learned stuff. This post more or less reminds me of those lessons and what to do with my next one.

First of all, I decided I wanted to use some Joggles products. I have a fascination with bugs...I don't like them...I'm just fascinated with them. A collage sheet of watercolor beetles was just what I needed to jump start some creative energy. From the collage sheet, I advanced to a stamp set from Stampin Up that was all bugs. (It's actually a layering stamp set but I only used the single detailed stamp and colored in with markers rather than layer every one.) That's when I just couldn't get the song, "Itsy Bitsy Spider" out of my head. So I figured I might as well use that.

The book comes with a front cover to hide the tunnel and the back cover is the last page. I actually did the covers last and they are a part of this project that I really like. The letters were from a Lawn Fawn set and I just colored them in with black marker. I split up the title and carried it to the inside cover as I felt that the word would take on a different meaning...like instead of a cutsy little spider trying to get where he's going, it would be a person yelling from the bathroom like the world is ending..."Spider!"

Take note that I did remove two pages of the tunnel book. I didn't need them and I think the tunnel still looks pretty good.

So this shows the tunnel. The grey page was to signify the drain/spout. The bugs I thought would all be trying to help our spider up the spout.

Up the Water Spout:   So I split up the pages to each represent a line of the song. I figured the left side would be where the words were and the right still revealed our bugs. Bonus! The word shows through the tunnel openings when you look back. 

I used the first gray page to see if I wanted to cover the book with papers or just paint it. Painting won out after I had a difficult time cutting out the opening with a craft knife. I used Distress paint with dauber tops and did not prime the chipboard. I did two coats and the coverage was pretty good. I have only 4 colors of Distress Paint and wanted to use them up. (This gets me a tiny bit closer but there's still a lot of paint in there!) I tried to match up colors to the line of the song. I also tried to match up the collage sheet beetles with a color they'd stand out on.

Down came the rain:  I used a stamp in the background of the blue pages that I thought might look like bubbles or waves. The black you can see around the edges of the circle opening is the back of the ring I used to add the words. On the left page, you can see the ring of words. A bit of that black shows through the other side, so each tunnel look like it has a bit of a black trim.

Out came the sun:  I tore patterned paper to make my sun. This was the only page that I had an idea of what I wanted it to look like. I added stenciling to this as I had with the first page. I cut out each of the watercolor beetles from the collage sheet. Only the larger ones that show through the tunnel had their legs still attached. The smaller ones that are glued onto the pages are simply bodies and I added the legs in with a fine point Sharpie. (Um, yea...I wasn't cutting out itsy bitsy legs!) 

Up the spout again:   The spider is one that I drew and cut out. I also drew in his web. The spirals are a couple stamps that I thought looked like webs. I drew in the little itsy bitsy spiders on the left side. (Sorry, in the photo they just look like dots but they are very tiny spiders.) I embossed the large spider with a black sparkle powder just to give him some bling.

The back cover seemed like a good place to practice my bugs before I went crazy with the front cover. I stamped a few in a line and used them for practice. Turned out ok.

Overall, I like the book but it seems to lack a lot of detail. I had a hard time figuring out what to put on the pages since a good chunk of it wasn't even there. The focal point of every page is whatever is in the bottom of your tunnel, so I had a bit of difficulty in trying to find a unique look to each page.

I like it and I don't. I think I learned that I really need to get excited about what I'm going to make. I wasn't excited about this. The fussy cutting of the beetles just seemed time consuming. The painting didn't go as I wanted. The rings for the words were hard to size and then they showed through anyway. (Though that didn't end up looking as bad as I thought it would.) This project seemed more like work than play, I suppose, and I think that shows.

-Wy