Sakura Blog Hop - A Tell-Tale Heart (Altered Book)

Welcome, I thought I would share an Edgar Allen Poe's A Tell-Tale Heart story with you. Here's the abridged version:

A man with a glass eye is murdered by someone claiming to be completely sane. The body parts are stored under the floor boards of his room. When the police come to investigate, they are invited to check the entire house and then entertained in the same room. The murder finally confesses to the crime because he/she is sure that the beating heart beneath the floor boards is heard by all.

I was selected to participate in the Art on Millionaire's Row Salon Art show at the Atladena Library earlier this month and given the opportunity to create an art book that would be sold to raise funds.

The best part of being selected was going to find the book to alter from the donated stacks beneath the building. A book from Poe collection practically jumped off the shelf at me. I knew at that moment that A Tell-Tale Heart was going to be my theme.

Once I got over my fear of the book police coming to get me for destroying something published over 100 years ago (I know, they still might show up at my door), I used crystal lacquer to glue all of the pages in the center of the book together. The story was at the end, leaving me plenty of space to hide a beating heart!

I started to use the crystal lacquer on each page, but quickly realized this would be A LOT of work. I then took binder clips to hold the pages together and generously applied the crystal lacquer to the edges. It dried overnight.

Although the book was not in the best of condition, I used the Zutter to rough up the binding even more. The chipboard Cogs from ScrapFx were painted with gold Luminere by Jacquard and then distressed. I used a gold leafing pen to go over the original wording on the cover - it was a weathered gray like in the design around the raven. Also the gold leafing was applied over the crystal lacquer holding the pages together. The buttons and ribbon worked great to secure the book when closed.

The red glimmer mist was applied towards the end, to give the illusion of blood.

Inside cover, a picture of Poe printed on photo paper and then painted with Metalic Acrylic paint from Jacquard and then sanded down.

I wanted an audio portion to the piece, so I purchased one of those cards you can record a message onto and then recorded a heart-beat. I hid the mechanism between several pages at the front of the book, so when it is opened to the title page, you hear the heart beat - escalating in volume and pace.

Another picture of Poe, splattered with blood. The Table of Contents was distressed.

Turning to the story, you discover that there is a heart on every other page and beneath the story is . . . the beating heart.

It took a while to cut out the, literal, heart of the book. I used an exact-o knife, taking out several pages at a time. I then applied a variety of colors of distressing ink to not only the cut-out portion, but also to the pages of the story. It created that cool heart pattern on every other page.

The heart was created using Soft Clay from ClayCraft. It is a soft, light weight durable air-dry clay. The cogs were applied before the clay dried. The computer hard-drive reader was a found object that seemed to fit perfectly with the illusion of the beating heart.

I had a lot of fun with this project. Please click on the link below to view my video showing the completed project.

A Tell-Tale Heart Video

Thanks for visiting!
Heather Morrow

P.S. Don't forget that you are blog hopping . . . next is Carole Lassake. If you missed anyone, or are completely lost - the entire blog hop list is below.

1) Sakura's Blog

2) Terri Sproul's Blog
3) Jennifer Van Pelt's Blog
4) Karen Myers' Blog
5) Chelsea Povall's Blog
6) Heather Morrow's Blog -- You are here
7) Carole Lasske's Blog -- Your next stop
8) Carol Burn's Blog

P.P.S. Check out our fun-filled Creative Souls Retreat happening this September in the beautiful San Bernardino Mountains.

Colorful Glass Pendants

I really enjoy working with the glass tiles from Sakura Craft. For this project, I recycled some painted photo paper and applied flower stickers from Sparkraft Enterprise.

It is a little hard to tell, but I did fill the middle of each flower and petals with the colored 3D Crystal Color Lacquer from the Glitter primary line.

The photo paper was painted with Lumiere by Jacquard. The word "soul" in the third pendant had been printed on the photo paper using my Photosmart printer.

I was not very patient when I glued the paper to the glass with the 3D Crystal Lacquer and you can see that some air bubbles did form at the top. You want to make sure you apply even pressure to the glass as it is drying, to avoid air pockets.

The paper was initially larger than the glass piece. I glued the piece down and once it was dried, trimmed very close the the glass.

I used wasabi paper on the back of the glass pendant with a coat of 3D Crystal Lacquer. The bails and chain are also from Sakura Craft. The bail attached with 3D Crystal Lacquer.

Keep on creating!

Heather Morrow
Creative Souls

P.S. Check out the Creative Souls Retreat happening this fall in the San Bernardino Mountains. Join us for this fun-filled weekend. Spend more than 40 hours unleashing your own Creative Soul! www.creativesoulsretreat.com

Mary Queen of Scots (Pendant)

This month from Sakura Craft, we got to play with these cool deep dish pendants. It's about 1/4" deep. I couldn't wait to layer "found objects" in . . .

This image, that reminded me of Mary Queen of Scots in her younger years - standing on the cliffs of Scotland, is from the ART-C Vintage Ladies collection. My mom had sent me these random charms. So, I played around with crowning my queen.

Cutting to fit the image in the pendant was a bit of a challenge, I ended up taking a bit too much off the top; however, you really cannot tell in the final result After using Crystal Lacquer to glue the image down, I covered it with a layer of additional lacquer.

After drying 24 hours, I put in the fleur de lis and the crown and poured in more crystal lacquer to cover the fleur de lis and leave the crown exposed.

When I was removing the crown charm from the original chain, the piece on top broke off, so it felt a bit incomplete. The star on the top is actually a bail, upside down. Again, I used more crystal lacquer to keep it in place.

The funky legs in the original plan didn't get included; I felt they really weren't necessary to complete the piece. It was then put onto a ball-and-chain necklace.

Have fun creating!

Heather Morrow

P.S. "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the live you've imagined." -Thoreau

Creative Souls Retreat

Karen Myers from Kat Scrap Studio and I are hosting a Creative Souls Retreat at the Pali Mountain Camp Site in the San Bernardino Mountains the weekend of September 9. This civilized camping includes cabins that are a higher caliber than Motel 6, so I think I will survive.



In putting together this retreat, Karen and I wanted to create an environment where our guests could explore their own creativity in a safe setting far away from the interruptions of daily life. We know how it is when you get a great idea for a project (scrapbook, painting, etc.) and then you get interrupted before you can put it all together. We've been there and have plenty of UFOs (Un-Finished Objects) to show for it.

To learn more about the retreat, click here. There is a fun video, so even if you are not interested in the retreat, I recommend checking out the video.

We've got a lot of cool workshops and demo-nars planned, so even if you are feeling a bit disconnected from your own Creative Soul, we promise you won't feel the same way when you return from the Retreat.

The early bird pricing on the Creative Souls Retreat is only being offered until June 17, and also if you are one of the first 35 registered, you will be entered in a special drawing. See the www.creativesoulsretreat.com website for more details.

I look forward to seeing you there!