Behind the Lines and Colors : My Peace illustration, personalized bookplate and notebook

My merry bookplate design with illustration originally from one of my 365 days I draw sketches. The topic is PEACE.

What is peaceful to you? To me, peaceful means when I am at home with book or pencil and sketchbook in hand. When I take evening walks with my mom around my dad's garden and sit down on soft green grass when mom needs to rest. When we listen to the wind and little birds chirping in early mornings. When I do yoga to start the day and when I take my eyes from book I'm reading for a while to listen to quietness of night time.

I have been thinking about pattern in my art, meaning what I mostly have in my pieces. I guess swirly flowers may be that pattern. For this illustration, I drew the flowers first and imagined my little girl spending her time alone (with her little bear) in a tiny rowboat floating in a little pond after the rain. A book in her hand, a greeting from the butterfly and a glimpse of rainbow up in the sky. In her peace, my imaginary peace :)



When I took this sketch to put it into design, I decided not to add anything more, just change the colors to make overall picture brighter and more refreshing. I had dark green for flower stems first but liked this purplish blue better. I hope you like it too :)

This illustration is for sale on my MerryDay Etsy shop in various kind of product-- a set of personalized bookplates as well as One and Only Limited Edition MerryDay Notebook and also art print to brighten up your place.



I have just realized that having this shop and talking about my work process for each piece on this blog really help me in many ways. It keeps me on my track and when I look back and think of what I thought and did on each artwork, it seems that I see something new. I just hope I can carry it along and apply it to my next pieces :)

Thank you for coming and if you have just happened to be here, you can learn more about me with my post of the history of MerryDay here and other work process posts in Behind the Lines and Colors category :)

DIY project : let's make butterfly bookplate!

I have been thinking about doing DIY project on blog for some time but never pushed myself hard enough to do it. A chance came when one of my facebook fellows who was doing part-time MC for a TV show about book and reading asked me if I could provide ideas for the show's DIY section. The artist who did this job regularly happened to be unavailable for two weeks. The show is on air weekly and she needed to have two ideas for the section. I was a bit nervous but it seemed so challenging. Sometimes when opportunity knocks, be ready and open your door (even if you don't feel you are ready at all)

The main concept of this DIY section is to create something that promotes reading activity. I was doing bookplates for sale on my shop at the time and thought it might be a good idea for the show.

Generally, bookplates are sheets of paper printed with beautiful illustration. But since the idea of DIY is to make things that can be made by hand easily, I thought we could play with shapes instead of illustrating.

My idea is this easy one, butterfly bookplate. Let's make one fly :)



I have been also thinking that if I do DIY project, I will reuse things that can be found at home as much as possible. So, for this project I just use paper from shopping bag, pretty and colorful photos from old magazine, pencil, scissors and glue.



First, cut a square sheet from a paper bag. Use the brown side.
The size depends on how big your book is.



Fold the paper in half then draw a wing of butterfly.



Cut the butterfly out. Unfold it. Now you have the first butterfly with symmetrical wings



Next, we're going to make design on its wings. Find a photos or pretty page from old magazine. Try putting the cut-out butterfly over the page in different positions to see which part will be best for cutting out.



Again fold down the magazine paper and use the first butterfly as a template. Trace the outline with a pencil.



This time we cut the second butterfly. Don't cut along the line exactly. Just use the pencil outline as a guide and cut smaller one. Now we have two butterflies.



Next we're going to make a third and final one.  The paper for this part should be in pale color so that what we write on it will be easily read. In this, I use a sheet from a notebook.



Again fold down the paper and use the second butterfly as a template. Trace the outline with a pencil. Then cut it out. This time you can cut exactly along the outline.  Then we will have two butterflies in the same size.



All the three butterflies are ready to be assembled next.



Glue down the outside part.



Then the other one inside. This side will be the part for writing "This book belongs to" and then put your name on. If you plan to make this as a gift, leave it blank here.



One very last step, cut a small piece of colorful paper fold down and make the butterfly's body!



Now we have our own handmade butterfly bookplate.When you stick it on the page,  place the butterfly in slightly-slanting position so that it looks like it's flying :)



Try opening it. How do you like it?

This is actually the way of making pop-up card adapted to be used as bookplate.  I think it will be very touching to put your own little craft in books you will give to your loved ones. They will cherish it, I'm sure :)

I have another fun and cute ideas of making this kind of paper art. Will share them later :)
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoy my very first DIY :)

I Like : Chanyeevon's lovely bookplates

♪ lu~la~la~lu ♪

I love the sky.. especially the passing clouds that look like a curious baby whale

I enjoy the beauty.. of million lonely fireflies above the deep blue velvet sky

I listen to the rain.. tapping outside my window on a Sunday morning

Above is what Chanyeevon, the creator of these wonderful bookplates, says in her Etsy profile page. I think it's beautiful and represents her work very well. Go and look around her shop and you will know what I mean :-)

This could be considered as a new year gift I bought for myself :-) It took me some time to choose which one I wanted the most. Actually, I was considering some cute bookplates from Yeevon's other shop, WhimsyWhimsical where you have to visit too, what adorable rabbit and fox drawing! I was torn between the beauty of these girls and cuteness of the fox, finally the girls won :-)

I love her illustration, especially her choice of colors, very unique. The blue-haired girl, I think her name is Luna, makes me think of a peaceful night, sitting under the dark blue sky sprinkled with tiny stars and feeling nice cool breeze. Just wonderful...

Yeevon is also kind enough to give me extra bookplates of her whimsywhimsical's owls and rabbits, Love love them! Thanks Yeevon, you inspire me! ^-^



And you gota love her cute little Thank You card!



*A little update : come and take a look at Yeevon's beautiful unicorn here, took my breath away :-)