VINTAGE CHRISTMAS BOOK - TIM HOLTZ CHRISTMAS IDEA-OLOGY 2020 RELEASE

Hello friends!  I'm sharing another Tim Holtz Christmas Idea-ology 2020 project today.  I was hoping to get all of my projects created this year posted before December, but as usual I'm behind!  I took a short break to decorate for the holidays and work on my other hobby addiction, sewing.

This is my Vintage Christmas Book.

This is the Vignette Box (TH93279) inside my book.

It even lights up inside!

This is the inside vignette, lit up.  Now, for the tutorial!  I seem to have lost my step by step photos of the inside vignette box in the book, but I will try to explain what I did.  Are you ready?  

This was the worst part of the project for me.  How do people carve out books so nicely?  I've seen some that are perfectly done, not in this case! I had started to carve this vintage Reader's Digest Hardcover book previously and gave up.  It started out ok and then the deeper it went, the more things shifted.  I checked to see if my book was deep enough for a vignette box and it was,  I immediately thought, ok, maybe this could work.  I had to go back and start cutting out the hole bigger, you can see the original size in the middle.  Because it was pretty close to the edges, I stabilized the carved out area by hammering in nails all around, which held all the pages together. No, I did not glue all the pages together! My nails stopped just before the back of the book. This doesn't look pretty, but I knew I could cover it up with paper.  I would try and find a book slightly wider than your vignette box, so you have a little bit of wiggle room behind the box.

Prepare your outside of the book by sanding it front and back, this will be covered with paper.

I drilled a small hole in the back cover, so my Tiny Lights strand can fit through.

The battery pack will be outside.

Now for covering the messy top page.  In hindsight, I would have taken out a few of the top pages, allowing for more room in-between the cover and this inner front.  It wasn't thick paper but, it did put a bit of strain on the binding of the vintage book.  Cut out the proper dimensions of your page, using patterned paper from the Christmas Mini Stash TH94085.  To cut out and fold the inner part of this overlay, I cut out a big X from corner to corner, place over the inner book, mark where to fold in. Trim the unwanted inner part of the paper, properly fold in and ink the edges,  Make sure your vignette box fits in the hole  Adhere the top page to the inner front of your book.

Drill a hole in the vignette box for you lights.  Cover the inside of the vignette box with Christmas patterned paper.  Adhere the Christmas Trim tape TH94107 along the edges. This is how the box looks when it is fitted inside the book. 

I really debated about cutting out this hole in the front cover.  I thought, well, if I don't like it, I can always  put back the centre pieces and cover with paper.  The shape of this hole was determined by the shape in the 5 1/2 x 4" Christmas Box Top(TH94089) that I used. Because my box top opening was full of curves at the bottom, I wasn't going to attempt to cut that with my craft knife, so I cut it below the curves straight across.  If you aren't going to use a box top, you can always just cut out a rectangle.

This is how the hole looks in front. I cut this part out ,before working on my vignette box scene, so I could see the placement of everything  as seen from the outside.

I have a little empty space between my book back cover and the vignette box, which is perfect to store that thicker part of the Tiny Lights cord. 

This section will tuck in-between the box and book back where the paper is cut away.  I waited until the book was finished, to adhere the back page to the back cover, just in case!  I used a wide double adhesive tape.

Cover the front and back of the book (not the spine) with Christmas Mini Stash Paper TH940845. Distress and ink the edges. Glue the battery pack to the back of the book

Before I inserted the box I planned what I wanted to do for my vignette.  It can't be done before it's placed in the book, as you need to place your Christmas Tiny Lights(TH94106) in the tree and behind the frame. I used a frame from the Baseboards TH94093 package and a Santa vellum piece from the Vellum Scenes, TH94094 adhered behind that. I cut pieces of foam about 1/4 thick and adhered them around the back of the frame, close to the inside circle.  This is so the frame is slightly raised and to keep the lights from the center. The Tiny lights are are wrapped around once on the outside of the foam pieces, ending up in the bottom corner close to the tree. The baseboard frame was also distressed and a touch of Rock Candy Glitter TDR35879 in random areas. I took the base off of the Tree(TH94101), dyed it green with Distress Spray Ink and Rock Candy Glitter added.  This was glued inside a Tim Holtz urn (Grave Relics TH94083) that was lightly painted with Distress paint.  Glue this into the box, wrap the rest of the lights around the tree. On the bottom of the box, I applied Ranger's Distress Texture Paste around the urn and across the bottom.  While this was wet, stick in a few Tim Holtz Baubles (these are randomly covered in texture paste and Rock Candy glitter ahead of time and let to dry), your tinted Paper Doll (TH94096) and Christmas Ephemera (94087).  The doll also had some fabric tape(TH94095) to look like a scarf and black thread with some tiny bells (TH94100) placed in her hands.  Once you have everything glued down, you can add Rock Candy Glitter to other areas for a bit of sparkle.

I wanted the Christmas Paper Doll to be visible in my window.  Now onto the front of the book.

I used a Christmas Box Top TH94089 for my front.  I cut off the sides and machine stitched around the edges.  I had a piece of Mica (ArtQuest Mica Tiles) big enough to fill the opening, peeling off some of the layers, so that there were thicker layers on the edges.  This was adhered behind the box top, the rough layered side facing the inside.  I also added a piece of the patterned paper that matched the inside cover, to the back at the bottom where the box top is curved.  This part is visible on the inside of the cover, so it will look finished off. Then the box top was adhered to the front of the covered book.

This is what your front looks like before adding embellishments.

I glued a piece of clear acrylic against the inside window of the cover to protect the mica piece. Cover the inside front of the book cover with the same patterned paper as the opposite side.  The edges were also inked. 

I added in some Christmas Ephemera TH94086 and around the window edge is the Pinked Trim Tape TH94107.  You can see here where I covered the back of the curved box top with patterned paper.

For my spine, I lightly sanded off the original titles with steel wool. White Christmas Remanent Rubs TH94096 were added.  For the front cover, I die-cut Sizzix Foliage, added some Alcohol Inked Berries TH93779, Christmas Flair Button TH94105, and Velvet Trim TH94108.

Here's another look at my finished Christmas Book! 

Thanks so much for visiting!

Until next time,

Jan