Toilet Roll Mini-Album–Psalm 122, Pt 1

Ed.: Five years on, and this project remains a UFO! (UnFinished Object.) Oh dear… Most of the flowers I made for it have been used in other projects. One day I may resurrect it!

I started this project today. It is a Christmas present for a friend, but she has been warned that it is extremely unlikely I shall finish it in time for Christmas! Having flu a few weeks ago put me behind with everything, and I’ve still got a great deal to do.

For those who don’t know, a toilet roll mini-album is made of toilet roll middles squashed flat. These form the pages of the album; they are bound at one end, and tags are put in the open ends. The rolls are covered with paper and decorated how you like.

This album is based on Psalm 122, all about rejoicing to be going up to Jerusalem to worship the LORD; it is a real celebration of Israel’s capital city. I am putting a word or phrase in Hebrew on each page, with a translation, and the accompanying tag will contain the whole verse.

I have always enjoyed using Hebrew in my art work because the letters are so attractive, and they lend themselves very well to calligraphy and design.
I spent most of my session in my ARTHaven today working on sketches for the whole project – I may photograph these and put them on here. I then made a start on the first page, which is still a work in progress. The Hebrew word is “Samachti” – the first word of the Psalm in Hebrew, “I was glad.” The page opposite (inside the front cover) will have a picture of a winding road ascending to Jerusalem, and page 1, and subsequent pages, will be decorated with flowers. This is what I’ve done so far – a work in progress!

I designed the sun (could be used as a sunflower too) in Inkscape and created a cut file which I then cut using Make the Cut software, with my cutting machine, Jiminy Cricut. I used a small piece of yellow card with flecks of darker yellow (this doesn’t show up too well on the photo), and I inked the edges with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Wild Honey.

I drew the Hebrew letters onto card and heat-embossed them in gold, using my embossing pen. I then cut them out and stuck them onto the page. Unfortunately the gold hasn’t come out very well on the photo, but looks a bit dull, when in reality it is bright, shiny gold. The brown card at the bottom was stamped with darker coloured ink (Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Vintage Photo). The English words were written directly onto the card, and I went over them with a dark brown marker pen and embossed them with clear embossing powder.
I am quite pleased with the dimensional effect of the overlapping Hebrew letters, and I think this effect will be enhanced when I make a “window” of small flowers and leaves in the corners. These will be in bronze and brown colours, probably with a bit of added sparkle in gold or bronze.

The background paper was taken from a 12 x 12 pack of scrapbooking papers that I bought from Ebay a few months ago – I’ve already used bits and pieces in some of my other projects. The quality is lovely – it has a nice smooth finish, and the blend of colours is gorgeous – lovely random effects.

The colour scheme for the whole album is going to be quite dark – browns, bronze and gold. I have been looking forward to trying this, as it’s a new departure from my normal style and I want a nice rich, vintage effect.
Watch this space! I’ve got six toilet rolls to cover and decorate (12 pages in all) and the cover to do, and also 6 tags to go inside the rolls.

I was hoping to be able to bind the pages together using a Cinch machine, but I haven’t got one yet. If I haven’t finished this project before the New Year, I may yet do this, as I am planning on buying a Cinch binder then. If I finish it in time for Christmas, I shall probably bind the pages together with ribbons, but haven’t yet decided on the final format.