Fairie Cottage - Let your imagination take flight!

Hi there ePers!  It's Erin here with you on this lovely Thursday!  I have to warn you now that I'm sharing my Altered Book that's this month's challenge theme, and there are a lot of pictures!  I was sick when the blog hop went live, so I decided to save my project for my actual day on here!  Gave me time to fine tune my project and finish it off nicely!

So, altered books.  Have you all started your altered book projects yet for the challenge?  I haven't been on here, so I don't know if we have any submitted, but you better get yours in!  What a fun and wide open challenge it is!  I had an absolute BALL altering my book!  I was able to find a hardback book at my library for $0.25!!!!  Score!  My hubby was happy that day!  Haha!

Have you noticed, or maybe I just noticed because I've been searching for ideas, but it seems like fairy cottages are THE thing right now.  Even my kids have brought up the subject of creating something outside!  After this project, I have the fever, so I think I'm in for coming up with something cute at the base of one of our trees!!!  I can't wait to work on it with my kids!
Anyway, back on topic!  Fairy cottages!  Fun stuff!  All different kinds of ideas of houses, furniture, flowers and plants, where to place the houses, and the fairies themselves!  Pinterest is FULL of cool ideas! 

For my project, I took an idea and ran with it!  As I usually do! And I'm very literal, so since the theme is altering books, boy did I alter this book!  You won't ever be able to read this sucker!  Hahaha!

Ok, here's the full view:

The house itself is made from an svg file from svgcuts.com.  The paper I used is Graphic 45's Botanical Tea.  I LOVE this paper selection!  OMG!  It's GORGEOUS!  You HAVE to get your hands on some of it!  Here's the link because it's just too beautiful to pass up!!!!!  Botanical Tea

Here's a closeup of just the teapot house.  The windows are actually my earrings that I didn't want anymore!  I added mullions to the insides to make them look more like windows!
Every flower that you see has been cut out using an exacto knife.  Even the fern!  That baby took 2 afternoons to cut!  Whew!




















Here's a closeup of the "courtyard".  Those are mushroom seats that the fairy is sitting on!  Aren't they so cute?!  All I did was roll up maybe an inch of paper and glue it together.  I glued a small pearl on the top, and then cut the blue and white polka dotted paper willy nilly and then sprayed it with water to make it pliable.  I dried it and shaped it some more, sponged on some dirt and glued the top in place on top of the pearl to help hold its shape.  I stuck them in the joint compound and that was it!  Easy peasy!

When you read a book, well, at least when I do, my imagination takes off!  I can go to whatever place they are in in the book.  I can become one of the characters.  And my book club friends know that if I don't like a character's name, I'll change it in my head!  LOL!  But, I LOVE to read, and I love that I can escape from the every day hustle and bustle with a good book! 

Here's a closeup of my earring window and door.  Isn't that ring fastener from G45 perfect?!  I love it!  It's the perfect fairy door knocker!  LOL!

Here are the stairs.  They are acetate and all I did was score a piece of it every inch.  Then, I folded them forwards and backwards to make them into steps.  I screwed up and cut the last step off too short, so, I rounded out the steps and turned them on the side!  It worked out!  LOL!
But, I wanted to make them see-through so that you don't miss any of the details on the house or the book, or the gurgling stream running underneath the house!  I put keys on each step so that it "looks" like a keystaircase. 

I couldn't leave the stream at the end of the book!  It had to go somewhere!  Just like at the end of a book that you have read.  You want the epilogue to find out what happens in the future!  Well, I decided to prolong the "story" if you will, and added a little teacup for the water to flow into and then, it does continue on, but you get the gist of what I'm trying to portray here.....

This is the side view from the Right.  I used gesso to create the grass.  I sprayed the gesso with Dylusions sprays, and added some flower soft for texture.  Gesso is SO easy to use!  It is low maintenance, and awesome!!!! 
The path was created by just drawing a pathway, and then using Tim Holtz's Cobblestone die, and using some metallic flakes to make it shine.

















 Here's a large view of the Left side of the book.  You can see the mushroom seats, and the pretty flower garden below the terrace/courtyard.

These next 3 are closeups of the courtyard.  I wanted to do something fun on this side!  So, I took Tim Holtz's Picture Wheel die and cut out the wheel.  I then took some Studio 490 Translucent Embossing Paste and with the Prima Floral Rose, and I smeared it all over, making gray dots.  Then, I sprayed directly onto it with Black Soot and White Linen and finished it off with water.  I let it dry, adhered it, and added grass to the little square negatives.  You see that sort of thing in gardens on Pinerest, so that's where that idea stemmed from! 

The middle part of the courtyard is actually one of those gazing balls that you often see in flower gardens.  Mine is of course a pearl, but you get the idea!  I thought it was boring to just have it on a straw, so I added some greenery to pretty it up!

Here's a closeup of one of the fairies.  I have to say that these fairies are from a long ago collection from G45 called "Once Upon a Summer".  It may have actually been out last summer, but I am not too sure...  Anyway, I thought of using these instead of creating my own fairies!

Closeup of more cut out flowers....

And finally here are the side views.

And here are the links to all of the products that you can find in our fabulous store!
Graphic 45 Botanical Tea
Graphic 45 Keys
Graphic 45 Key Holes
Tim/Sizzix Picture Wheel
Dylusions:  Black Soot, White Linen, Cut Grass, Dirty Martini, & Fresh Lime
Studio 490 Translucent Embossing Paste
Liquitex Gesso
Walnut Stain Distress Ink
Prima's Floral Rose stencil (12" x 12")

I hope that I have inspired you to step outside of your comfort zone and try this challenge out!  You will be amazed at what you come up with!!!

Have a fabulous day!
Erin