The finished tree.


As I am not too good at blogging and my blogs may not relay my book from start to finish. Here is a brief rundown of my ideas which led to the finished project "Precious Hands"

• I looked at the idea of making a book of our three dogs in the form of silhouettes

• While playing with my nieces and nephews and taking their handprints, the idea came to me to make a book of handprints of all the grandchildren and their two living grandparents in our family. Also to include the many talents and hobbies they have between them.
• An example of some of their talents and hobbies are Grandpa is a great judge of the horses and racing and has a great love of them, despite the fact he has lost his sight. Grandma is a lover of the garden and flowers and prays for us all. Emma is a star at the voilin, while Patrick plays the piano and reads for Ireland.
• I made handprints of all.
• I made some sketches of their hobbies/talents
• I researched artists
• I planned to make one book of all the handprints with image beside each print but changed my mind and decided to make it more special.
• Silhouettes came to mind again for the handprints and the talent etched.
• I pondered on the idea of making a mould of the hands and digging out a shape for them in old books like karen's whimsey altered dolls. But decided there would be too many.
• After a bit I came up with the idea of making a little small book for each person and hanging them from a branch. This would make them special. Su Blackwell inspired me here
• I scanned handprints making them small.
• I sketched smaller images and decided to add colour.
• I found the perfect book the Dilemma and glued 600 pages and bored a hole through the pages on one side to hold the branch.
• I found a lovely branch with buds on it in woods near my home. I put this standing on old book.
• I made little books for the handprints and images and hung them from the branches with nice ribbons. I rubbed a tea bag on pages of the old book to give it a more aged look.
• I called my book "Precious Hands" to me thats what they all are.
• Finished!!! My three children love the book

This is the book I used for my tree. I think it really works as I had to think of a good way of presenting my tree I was in a bit of a dilemma. My internet was down over the weekend and also its so slow. It takes forever to down load a image.

Her books are amazing, they are all made from old books and take a good while to make. She considers the titles and makes her books to suit , It may be a line or other.

Su Blackwell's books which inspired, when I was researching for my book

one of the personal books with handprint showing

my finished book on display. I named it precious hands. The tree is like a wish tree but can also be a family tree. Grandma and Grandpa are the roots and the children are the buds on the tree

I have decided to use colour on my images as I felt they were a bit lifeless. These are the images to go with Niamh's Caoimhe's and Grandma's handprints

here is where I am at it took a while to glue all the pages.
Image of the book and the branch I hope to use.

I am not fast on this blogging

Some of the images I will use in my book

progress on book project

I have all the handprints gathered now that I need for my book.

I now need to make them all small for the mini books.     Ben,s handprints the baby