Ugly duckling paper becomes a beautiful Swan booklet

I know it's been more than a month, almost 2 in fact.  I'm only now starting to catch my breath though, life had been non-stop.  In addition to the 3 back to back out of town trips I had, there was the annual goodbye to our son as he left for another year of college.  About that same time our dog got seriously ill between trips 2 and 3, so add giving her multiple meds, getting her to eat and trying to nurse her back to health in general.  Unfortunately despite our best efforts she only got worse and we had to put her down after weeks of trying and several more visits to the vet.  Only a couple of days after that I got the flu, I fine now but I sure wish I had stock in the company that makes facial tissues, I could have easily gotten my money back and then some.

I am going to post a few catch up pics this week but hope to have a more detailed "how to" post soon.

 

I used a 12 x 12 sheet of cardstock to create a mini book months ago maybe even close to a year ago, I'm honestly not sure.  I never finished decorating the book though.  I knew when I purchase the pad of paper it came in that this sheet of paper could be pretty but as is, it was too gaudy.  It had  beautiful orange, yellow and gold foil flowers on it but they were way too large and overwhelmed the design.  Once it was folded down to 3 x 3 pages though, WOW!  Suddenly it was too pretty to decorate and cover up.  Which is why it ended up in the 'to be finished eventually' box with other unfinished projects or UFO as the stamping/crafting community likes to call them.

Flash forward to last month; I've been sick, I'm stressed, in mourning and just plain tired but want to be creative so I go digging through that same box looking to see if something will catch the attention of my muse.  The minute I saw that unfinished book I knew I had to complete it.  I grabbed some Susan Branch stickers I had in my stash and went to work finishing pages.  Then I added a bit of bling to the first page and the front of my book.

these pages were the only ones done with cancelled post office
stamps and die cuts as well as stickers

The actual book was done but I had 3 slots for inserting tags left to make.  I started by cutting pale yellow cardstock into tags and then ran them through my Bigshot using a GooseBumpz roses embossing folder.  I then colored and distressed the tags using several different colors if inks and watercolor paints. Notice that I did this on the debossed side of the tags.  Using this side of the tag enabled me to color the roses easier and would make gluing my chosen quotes onto them easier.  I picked three vellum quotes from a booklet of  famous quotes (JoAnns) that I've had for years and cut them to fit each tag.  I then glued them on using matte gel medium.

When I glued the original book together I had used  washi tape on the edges, so I did the same to my tags so they matched the book.  My tags were almost finished all I needed was ribbon for the holes.  While I was searching for ribbon I remembered some tea themed charms I had so I decided to add them to my tags as well.  All that was left now was to insert the tags into the book and take a few pictures.

I'm not sure yet who will receive this as a Christmas gift but it will definitely not be just anyone.  It will go to someone very special.  Have you ever made something ugly beautiful?  If not I challenge you to do so, you might end up with your own Ugly Duckling creation.