Repose-itory Part 2 - Hitting the Books

 So part two of this project is focusing on the books. This is a super easy little technique. The only thing you need besides the Santa's Helper dies is a little bit of patience.

 I named this project the Repose-itory because I was thinking it was a haunted place of REPOSE and then when I added all the books, voila! I had to change the word Repository, like a place with a collection of books, into a Repose-itory.  When you say it you have to hold the O like Paul Frees does when he narrates the script in Disney's Haunted Mansion. Repoooooose-itory.

 If you have ever ridden Disney's Haunted Mansion, (Did I mention that it turned 50 this month?) :-D you will probably remember the attic portion. It is packed full of junk and covered in dust and cobwebs.  I used that as inspiration for this piece.

From the old bricks that I discussed in my last post, to the piles of books, old windows, large fireplace, books, bottles, wedding photo, candles, the Ghost Host raven, and of course, some of the 999 Happy Haunts.

 So the books....they aren't really book dies.  They are the lids to the presents in the Santa's Helper die set.  But I just couldn't stop seeing books. Kind of like when I saw the cauldron die I couldn't stop seeing a Santa Sack.  You know it's one of those things that once you see it, you can't unsee it.  So I decided to just go with it. When you look at the dies sideways as you see them below, you can see how they look like books with lines on the spine.

To make the books this was my process. I backed some Distress Mixed Media Heavystock with Sizzix Permanent Adhesive Sheets.
Then you can do this two ways, you can cut all the gift box lids from plain Distress Mixed Media Heavystock and color them all individually with Distress Ink and a Waterbrush. If you do this, I recommend cutting and coloring them one lid at a time.

 Or you could color some small pieces of Heavystock with Distress Inks, back them with the adhesive sheets and then cut out the lids. You then mix and match the lines for the book bindings with different colors of book spines.  This is probably the fastest method.

I cut my colored paper into strips and then just cut the lids and the "ribbon" bits. If you use the colored paper method, you need to cut two of each lid with at least two different colors so you can mix and match parts.

Here you can see that I have cut each lid from two colors of paper and switched the "ribbon" bits. From this point I would ink the edges and adhere them together.
Once you have a nice pile of different sizes of books, then you can start arranging them on your piece. Pile them up, lean them against each other, put candles or bottles or skulls or other frightful items on them or next to them.  If you really wanted to go all Haunted Mansion attic, you could make a few old looking wedding gifts out of the Santa's Helper dies and pile those around too for Constance and her many husbands.

You can see from the photos I included that I used quite a few of the dies from the Regions Beyond and Frightful Things die sets to set the scene. I completed the piece with the name Reposeitory, cut out of the new Handmade steel rule alphabet and it is by far one of my favorites!

The next post will be my last on this piece. I will cover the Wedding Photo and Crystal Ball.

Just a reminder that if you have questions or want me to detail anything else, please contact me through the form at the right as I can't reply to comments. I do greatly appreciate them though and read every single one, so thank you to those who take time to leave a comment.

I hope you can find a good movie, settle down with a die cutter, the dies, and paper and have fun making some books!
Tami

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