Stitch*Bookery : book 3

Lots of girlfriends having birthdays in August so here's another book from the online class I'm doing with Mary Ann Moss - delivered today. It's an accordian book (from Week 2 lessons) stitched on manila luggage tags. This time I didn't check up on favourite colours, I chose them based on what I see her wear and that she gifted me this gorgeous heart as part of my birthday present

It might have been all about me, but I'm working on the theory that you give girlfriends gifts you'd love to receive yourself! So I gathered again - this is probably what takes the longest amount of time. I've got backgrounds in my neutrals and 2 colours of turquoise and red, plus some focals/words I want to use. 

Then I just start stitching onto the tags - layering as I go - not planned ahead....so much fun to see what comes 

Although I began thinking all the stitching would be in red 

I decided to do some stitching with a variegated turquoise/purple thread as well

I used some of my favourite techniques again : paper serviettes

and found words of course ♥

It's fun to have lots of variety in the pages - different types of paper and trying out my machine's decorative stitches as well. I love my sewing machine. I've been using my "new" (2 years old) fancy one since there is no glue or paint associated with these tags.

I used a manila tag as a pattern to cut the shape out of a lovely recycled birthday card before I stitched on it 

The tag below was in my stash from an experiment for a journal page in 2015 - I just added a little stitch detail

I stitched paper to 12 tags on one side only and decided that was enough to join them up. I stitched 2 together back to back to make the front cover more solid. When I sorted the rest it was obvious that some belonged together

and the others soon fell into place (click on any photo to see it larger)

I love the look of all the different fibres/sari ribbons that I added to the tops of the tags

I haven't covered the stitching on the back and I rather like the look of it 

My friend is a poet so I thought she has 3 choices : leave the back as it is, stick down some of her own lovely paper and imagery, or write poetry in the gaps

Gifted this morning and had to smile - I was wearing turquoise and she was wearing red! I'm away from tomorrow for a crafty weekend at the beach and taking my sewing machine and paper with me. Happy Creative Weekend to you ♥
PS. The current class of Stitch*Bookery is closed, but Ms Moss will be running another session with registrations from late October. See all my posts about this class HERE.