Postcard challenge 2012

My dear friend Darcy has set up a challenge I am determined to join in with.... Please go to her blog - see my link below - or use the button I will post on my blog to find out more...

But in short ... Every week she will post a country that we then have to write a postcard from a decorate it in line with that country. The postcards will then be a correspondence between two people and we make the story up as we go along. the postcards get stored in a book so that they remain in order and can be read in sequence.

First thing to do was to decide on how to make the book... I decided to make it all from scratch to my own design and so this is what I have done so far...

I covered two corrugated cardboard sheets 8x6 in atlas pages and then applied some gesso randomly across the cover to provide some texture. this is all I have done to these at the moment, but intend to add ink and stamps and a title too when they are dry.

Then I cut some pages for the book from a variety of coloured cards in muted tones mainly in earthy type colours. These are 7.5x5 in size. I will then score them 3/4 of an inch in to make the edge of the page where I will punch them, as I will with the cover. I've not quite done enough for the 52 weeks just yet as I imagine I will not always manage to do every week, plus as I intend to bind it at the end it won't matter if some have to be done later and added in.

Finally I am using standard 6x4 postcards and so have some ready cut watercolour ones and have also cut some from some acrylic paper too. I have got a postcard type stamp somewhere in my stash so will dig this out, but don't want to do too many in advance in case I want to do a different design on the backs of a few. But in essence, with the exception of finishing the book cover off, I will be ready for Darcy's first country being posted on 2nd January 2012. Please feel free to comment, and please do go over to Darcy's blog to see what's going on and see everyone else's work! It's going to be fab!

link to Darcy's challenge