~ REVISITING THE CHRISTMAS BOOKS ~

I have had some people comment and email me asking me about the Christmas books I pictured on my blog back in December. They were wanting to see the inside of the books. I have pictures of three of the four books and will gladly share them with you. The books started off as plain paper mache books from Hobby Lobby. I painted the exteriors with various colors and painted the "pages" to look like those old edged pages. The covers of the books were images I found online and sized to fit the approximately 5"x7" cover of the book. I distressed the covers to make them look "vintage" and then applied various colors of Stickles to make the look more festive or like old Christmas cards with all of the glitter.  

Here is the interior of "The Night Before Christmas".

I found the page on the left online and sized it to fit the interior cover of my book. I made the little bell corsage on the inside cover out of little silver bells that I glittered gold and wired them to a couple of little pine cones and a piece of evergreen garland...finished off with a red velvet bow. My mother always wore corsages similar to this at Christmastime when I was a little girl. Then I distressed and stickled the page. The interior of the book was done with various miniatures, mostly from Hobby Lobby. The "wallpaper" is some of that wonderful Daisy Ds vintage Christmas paper that is discontinued. I loved that paper and miss it! I made the fireplace using paper that looked like brick. It is flat but the distressing makes it almost look 3D. The mantle of the fireplace is Grungeboard that is inked. The Christmas tree was a plain bottle brush tree that I added ornaments and tinsel garland to. Santa was a little ornament from Hobby Lobby. He was the perfect size! The stocking hung by the chimney with care is actually a piece of snowman print felt. I cut out a little stocking shape and stickled around the outer edge of it then I glued it to the mantle.

This is the interior of Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. That was my favorite Golden Book of Christmas stories when I was little. So, I wanted to leave the interior cover of the book to look like the interior of my original cover of the Golden Book I loved so much. The Santa and reindeer is an ornament that worked perfectly. I attached a 3D silver metallic star to the top of the interior of the box and it freely hangs over Santa. He is mounted on a "rooftop" that is made out of Grungeboard and covered in little wooden shingles like are used on dollhouses. The tree in the corner helps support the reindeer. I added Snowtech to the tree and to the rooftop as well as the base of the box. Then I added a little string of plastic lights to the gutter of the roof.

Frosty the Snowman...another of my favorite Golden Books. I made the interior of the cover and sized it to fit. Then I added a few snowflakes, a candy cane and some mica flakes to give it even more of a vintage look. I made the snowy scene for the background of the interior using a scene out of the original book and adding some stickles. The characters are the actual ones in the Golden Book. I sized them, cut them out, added some cardstock behind them for strength and then used small little wooden blocks to mount them in various places. I added Snowtech for that really snowy look. Of course, they are outside in the snow, so I had to add some snow to their shoulders and backs as well. I hung snowflakes from the top of the box to finish it off.

I hope this helps those of you who had asked me to post pictures of the interiors of the books. I intend to add "A Charlie Brown Christmas", "It's A Wonderful Life" and "A Christmas Story" to my "library".

Thanks for spending a little bit of your day with me! I always appreciate your visit.  Leave a comment if you're so inclined. I enjoy reading them!