My theme for the book on this project was "Gratitude".  The book I chose was a spiral bound journal with blank pages inside.  I had gotten the journal for $1, on clearance.  As such, it wasn't the greatest journal.  It had a strange purple, green and white plaid cover with green striped inside cover pages and pink pages with daisies inside for writing.  While not entirly my style as a journal, I thought it would make a great book for this project, with a few adjustments.

I painted the outisde covers with a sage green acrylic paint, and embellished the covers with gold dragonflies and swirls.  I covered the green striped paper inside with a watercolour painted paper in green, beige/yellow and pink, layering this with yellow cardstock beneath the window in the front cover.  Inside of the window I used two small buttons and embroidery floss to attach a vellum quote to the page.  I also cross stitched a small tag that reads "Blessed" (the back of the tag is covered with the same paper I used to line the inside of the front of the book) and attached this to the binding with organza ribbon:
 
 

Inside the front cover, I created a vellum pocket with swirled vellum paper to hold my placard which gives the details for the book.  I also attached the card to the page with embroidery floss and a sticker in the upper corner to both ensure that it is not seperated from the book and to make it easier to slip out of the pocket:

I had initially planned the first layout in this book to include different definitions of the words "grateful", "blessed" and "thankful" but at the last minute our computer printer decided to have a small fit, and I needed something to fill this page!  I came up with the one thing we should all be the most grateful for, our life itself.  The page facing and the remaining pages following did go as planned, thankfully:

The next series of pages were left partially blank, and I asked the other participants to fill in the books and music they are grateful for here.  I consider both books and music to be a huge blessing in my life, and there are so many I am grateful for I could have easily filled all the pages myself!  It was hard to limit myself to my very favourite items:

I added one last layout, mainly because I was having so much pleasure during my favourite season that I felt I had to incorporate it into the book.  I attached a gold ribbon from a present Richard had gotten me the previous anniversary (since our anniversary is in the fall!) with a bit of gold sealing wax, which I pressed a signet into:

I was so excited to get my first book of someone else's to work on, but was slowed down for days because of pure nerves!  I was so afraid that my style wouldn't be right for her book, but finally decided that my style was my style, and the beauty of this project was getting back a book with lots of different styles!

Magaliscious' book was originally a daybook - a book of days so to speak.  Her note indicated that anything on a theme of time, days or seasons would be welcome, or we could feel free to be inspired by any of the themes suggested in the book.  Personally, I did a little bit of both.

This was the first layout I did in this book, though it appears last, as it is in the month of December.  I was inspired by the text printed on the page, which reads "Find or make a small box suitable for holding file cards.  Call your family and your friends and collect and copy out favorite recipes.  Aim for a dozen or more ranging from hearty soups to homemade fudge, from holiday breads to summer salads.  Recapture Grandma Mary's sugar cookies, your secret recipe for cocoa, your girlhood favorite s'mores.  If you come from a large family, recipe boxes like these make wonderful Christmas gifts."  From this idea I raided my own recipes, which contained items from both my family and Richard's.  I made small cards out of red and white cardstock and attached them to the date boxes on the right hand page in a red and white checkerboard pattern inspired by red and white checkerboard tablecloths.  I then copied a family recipe into each card.  On the left hand page, I collaged various words and images clipped from magazines, all in a food theme:

The second layout was inspired by Richard.  I was talking about wanting to incorporate a poem about seasons into the book and he brought up "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost.  On this page, I copied the lines of the poem into the calender squares on the right hand side, and accented them with stamps.  A simple layered paper design completed the left hand page, using card stock and embossed vellum.  I used letter stickers in gold to add the word "Stay" to the left hand page, and left some of the original words on the page visible:

For the third layout, I took the words to the song "Book of Days" by Enya and put them in an interesting font, then printed them out.  I tore the edges, then crumpled and straightened the paper, then tea dyed it.  This faded the text enough that it was difficult to read, so I went over the letters using a felt tip artist pen.  I created a simple collage of ephemera on the facing page:

I have had SO MUCH fun with these layouts!  When I got this book and noticed the original title was "Once on a Time"  I knew I had to do a fairy tale theme.  But what fairy tale?  How many could I cram into my pages?  I loved so many, and there were so many great images in fairy tales that could be used!  Finally I decided instead of doing Fairy Tales in general, I needed to pick one fairy tale and illustrate that story in my pages.  Because one of my favourite tales has always been Snow White, that was what I chose as my theme.

Unfortunately no matter what I seemed to do (flash, no flash, light, no light, miscellaneous settings on my camera) pictures of this book just didn't do the layouts justice at all.  I'm not sure what the problem was exactly, but this was the best I could do.

For the first page, I created a black frame out of cardstock and put in a "glass pane" of vellum.  The vellum I chose was printed with small dots to simulate snow falling.  I used torn white cardstock to create drifts of snow in the window frame, and red ink to create "drops" of blood on the snow.  I threaded an embroidery needle with purple floss and inserted it into the upper corner of the frame.  Written on the vellum is the opening paragraph of Snow White:
 

"Once upon a time, in mid-winter, when the snowflakes were falling like feathers from heaven, a beautiful queen sat sewing at her window, which had a frame of black ebony wood.  As she sewed, she looked at the snow and pricked her finger with her needle.  Three drops of blood fell into the snow.  The red on the white looked so beautiful that she thought 'If only I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as this frame.'  Soon after, she had a little girl that was as white as snow, as red as blood, and therefore they called her little Snow White."

For the second page I took advantage of a pre-existing illustration in the book, colouring it in to resemble Snow White as a child, with a silver background.  I added a gilt "frame" around it to simulate a mirror.  I then attached a small mirror to the page, having written the infamous "Mirror Mirror on the wall, who in this land is fairest of all?" on it with a permanant marker.  I added the answering text of the mirror below framed with a swirl of small beads glued to the page.
 
 

"Mirror Mirror on the wall, now who is the fairest of us all?

Over the seven jeweled hills, beyond the seventh fall, in the cottage of the seven dwarves dwells Snow White, fairest of us all.  Snow White still lives, fairest in the land, tis the heart of a pig you hold in your hand."

This page layout was the most difficult to photograph for some reason, so please forgive the quality.

On the left hand page I chose the poison apple as the theme.  I took a large red apple cut out and brushed it with gold ink (I'm aware that in the photograph it just looks dirty - trust me, it's gold ink!), then hung a bronze tag round it's stem on which I wrote the word "apple" in different languages ranging from French to Japanese to Russian.  On the bottom of the page I added a cobblestone printed bit of paper on which I added a bit of white cardstock with a red apple sticker in the center, and the following verse from the story:
 

"Dip the apple in the brew, let the sleeping death seep through.  When she breaks the tender peel to taste the apple in her hand, her breath will still, her blood congeal, then I'll be fairest in the land..."

"...so beautiful, even in death, that the dwarves could not find it in their hearts to bury her.  They fashioned a coffin of glass and gold and kept eternal vigil at her side.

The prince, who had searched far and wide heard of the maiden who slept in the glass coffin.  On first sight he loved her, and gently kissed her cold red lips, not knowing Loves First Kiss would awaken her..."

At the bottom I put a small gold plaque reading "Happily Ever After", the ending to any perfect fairy tale!