Butterflies - Craft-Room Challenge DT Project

Gosh, 2 weeks comes round again so quickly!!!  As usual, the entries to the Summer Birthdays challenge over at Craft-Room Challenge were absolutely stunning.  Thank you to everyone who took part, and good luck.

Straight onto our next challenge, which is "Butterflies", and this time it was Debi's turn to host the challenge.  I have a feeling that this will be a very popular one as well!  For my DT piece, I made something which I've never made before, which is an altered book.  I've been intending to make some sort of keepsake with some pictures of my daughter, but when I started altering this book, it just sort of evolved:

This is the finished book.

It's quite a sentimental piece for me and has taken pride of place in my living room :-)  On the left hand side are some childhood photos, at the top is a pic of a flower with a caterpillar and the quote "Soon you will become what you are meant to be" - and near the bottom, the pic of the flower in full bloom with butterfly, and the quote "it just takes time".

This is how it started out, with just the middle cut out:

and then with a coat of gesso, paper-pieced around the frame (using the page pieces I cut out), with Ranger Glue n Seal (Matte) and then inked up with distress inks:

I cut the inside out of the book leaving just a frame, painted gesso over recess and pages (right) and used TH paper (left), and tissue tape.  I added TH fragments, HOTP jewellery images (two flower images with quotes), Marianne butterflies (i think), charms, ribbon, cord, distress stickles etc from my stash, some photos of my daughter and random words printed from the pc.  At the top and bottom of the main photo on right side, I added the sentiment "Spread your wings.....and fly away", again done on the pc.

Some close-ups:

You have 2 weeks to enter the challenge and could be the lucky person to be chosen at random to win a £10 voucher to spend at Craft-Room Online Shop.  There are some great goodies to be had over there at very reasonable prices, so have a browse and see what you can find.  All you need to do when you enter is pop the shop icon in your side bar, and link you entry back to the Craft-Room Challenge in your post.  

Hope you like it, have fun, good luck, and thanks for visiting!

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:

Make It Monday - Anything Goes
Woodware USA - Paper Piecing (not sure if I qualify for this one?)
Pile it On - your favourite technique
Sentimental Sundays - Inky Fingers

Maria x