Travel Accordion Book - cover redo

Hello Hello
How are you fine peeps today? Lovely I hope
Today I want to share with you a mini accordion book that I made in...gosh probably 2009 although it's been long enough that I can't honestly remember...lol.
The reason I am sharing it today is because it's finally ready to share.
Although it's technically done and has been done since whenever it was that I made it, it never seemed 'finished'...not sure if that makes sense to you but if you are a crafter in any form of the word then I will assume that you do in fact know what I mean, but for those of you that do not know please allow me to show you.

Here is a 'before' photo, the mini that I will be sharing is the little book that says, "postcard". When I created the book I used that stamp (which I still own) and had stamped it on both the front and the back covers. At the time it worked for me as an ending point so that I wouldn't have to do anything further but here lately I've been noticing a lot of my older pieces seem to me to be 'unfinished'. Quite honestly it's probably more to do with my personal tastes changing but I couldn't resist the opportunity to 'finish' this one if you will.

Here is the same mini but with the unfinished covers reworked...
I started with gluing down wadded up tissue paper to create the background texture, then I added on a die cut piece to add interest, once it dried I painted both sides with black gesso and then used a stencil with texture paste - painted the final piece with some metallic paints.

A close up of the front cover where I added a trinket pin and a metal sentiment that says, 'journey' over the top of all those layers, adding on the belt and buckle seemed to make it even more fitting for what the inside pages contain...
fond memories

In total this mini has 8 photos, 6 of which are of some of the places that my husband & I had traveled to thus far. There are two in the bunch that are from right here in our home town but represent a past time that we both enjoyed; one is of us at the lake celebrating a friend's birthday (an annual event that lasted for several years) and the other is the two of us at the Royals home opener back in 2003 I believe, our 1st time together doing that (but since then we've gone to home opener 4 or 5 times). 

Here's a look at a couple of our photos: the one on the left is in Las Vegas in 2003 celebrating my sister-in-law's 40th birthday and then on the right - in Chicago in 2007 at Soldier Field watching the Chiefs/ Bears game. There was a time when a group of our friends would travel out of town at least once throughout the season to watch the Chiefs play and oh my did we have some fun but as family life has gotten more demanding and all of us getting older it's become harder and harder to 'get away'.

Here we are on the left in Charleston in 2003 on a family trip with my brother and his wife before either of us had any little kiddos - then on the right there we were on the Oregon Coast in 2004 when we got married at Heceta Head Lighthouse. By the way this is one of the most beautiful parts of our country and one of the most famous lighthouses in our nation, if ever you get the chance to stop and revel in it's beauty...do so!

Now I realize that these photos don't mean a thing to you but what I do want you to notice is the photo above, do you see how when the white tag is removed from it's pocket the photo disappears almost? This is my genius from back whenever... 
I was messin' one day and decided to play with something new...I printed my photos on transparency. Once I had them I realized belatedly that there was no real good way to adhere them to anything so...I sewed them and turned them into pockets for the tags. Pretty cool huh? Well maybe not so much nowadays but back then I sure thought so because I hadn't seen anything else like it...granted that was before we scoured the internet looking at Instagram and Pinterest and what have you...so...anyhow.

Here's a glimpse of the pages with the tags completely removed, the photos are still noticeable but much less so without the tags in place...and I just now noticed that I put the wrong info on the Charleston tag, we actually started in Savannah and so I guess I wasn't paying much attention when I wrote that down - I must fix that soon so it won't drive me crazy...lol.

Finally here is a quick look at the back and how the belt fits all the way around. Before I glued it down I added on the brads to make it appear that they held the belt in place, they do not they are merely decoration but I like the final result quite so and hopefully you do as well.

I thank you for looking and hope that you have a great day!

just B