March 24, 2014

By the Sea Tunnel Book


I love making tunnel books, and when I saw the new Graphic 45 By the Sea paper collection I knew it would be perfect for one of these books.

The design for the book was taken right from the primary pattern paper ("By the Sea") which has the perfect scene - a foreground (the beach), some middle ground (lighthouse), distant objects (sailing boat) and the sky. And this particular paper line has three sheets of each patterned paper, making it even easier when you need multiple objects from a pattern, or want to use the front and back more than once.


The book is a gate-fold construction; the cover opens in the middle.  The lighthouse image is the closure.  It is backed with chipboard and is permanently attached to the left cover and the right side has two hidden magnets that attach it to the right cover.

The outside border with the shells comes from the primary pattern paper.

On the left and right side, the front covers are attached to the back cover with red corrugated paper.  I colored white corrugated paper using Distress Ink to coordinate with the Graphic 45 paper.



There are five panels:

  • A frame
  • The beach scene
  • Lighthouse and near ocean
  • Sailboat and far ocean
  • Sky






Panel One

The first panel is a slightly larger portion of the primary pattern paper's frame than that used on the cover.

I cut the edges of some of the shells and raised them with pop dots.

The stamps on the left border have a second layer of stamps added with pop dots, cut from leftover scraps of "Splash" paper.




Panel Two

The beach scene was fussy cut from the primary pattern paper.

To the left of the children was a big blue fish that didn't quite fit in with the scene, so I cut out the "Beach Rules" from a scrap of "Set Sail".

I made a frame from "Gathering Shells" and used some stripes cut from "Pier 45" as a secondary border.





Panel Three

I used two pieces of "Set Sail" for the ocean.  I toned done the images in the front piece by using some blue distress ink over the entire piece.  On the far ocean I used some white chalk ink on the same paper to make it appear to be more in the distance.

The lighthouse is tucked between the two layers of ocean with some extra rocks cut and added to the front.

The frame is from "Splash" and I again added some border strips cut from "Pier 45".



Panel Four

The ocean is the back side of "Set Sail".

The ship is from the mail pattern paper.

The frame is the back of "Gathering Shells", again with stripes from "Pier 45".







Back Panel

The back panel is the same paper as the front cover, "My Anchor".  I wanted it to fade into the background so I added a piece of vellum on top before adding the frame.

I used 3 little birds from a Memory Box Die (Flying Birds) to add a little interest behind the ship in the previous panel.

The frame is the back of "Pier 45" with an inner border of stripes using the same paper as the other panels.


Back Cover

The back is "Gathering Shells" with the a fussy cut nautical woman leftover from the cutting up the main pattern paper, just to add some interest.


The Accordions (not pictured)

The book is constructed with two accordion pleated papers on each side.  The panels are attached to the front side of each V-fold.  I used "Beachcomber" for the accordions.

Each of the four freestanding panels is backed with a 7/8" frame made from 110 lb cardstock to give extra support to the panel.

View a video of the finished project:

1 comment:

Linda Fahlberg-Stojanovska said...

I love tunnel books too. Every time you look, you see something new that their maker took time to create. Here I really like the lines under the sailing ship. The idea of the vellum and then the bird stickers on the back panel was absolute excellent. It definitely makes it look far away and brings the birds into relief. Such a wonderful restful result. Also liked that you took images of the individual panels. You could really see the details of the fussy cutting that way. Thanks for sharing.