Handmade Book of Cards

A friend of mine, Maria, gives me handmade cards every week! Yes, every week. She blames me for her addiction to making cards as I introduced her to the craft. I wanted to celebrate her artistic flair and wanted an excuse to make a handmade book. So I combined the two in this book. Her favorite color is pink, so of course I used some of my prettiest pink scrapbooking papers to cover the book covers and spine. I used pink ribbons to tie the book together when it is closed.

The spine and end papers (inside the book) match.
For inspiration, I looked to one of my favorite books, Expressive Handmade Books, by Alisa Golden. The cover is called a split-board binding (see pages 128 and 129). I used the accordian structure she describes. I added flags to the accordian structure so that I could attach the pretty cards to the book without changing the cards in any way. See Alisa's Single-Flag Book topic (pages 57 through 59) for tips on how to incorporate the flags.

I wanted to be able to open the cards so I could read the sentiments inside and the cards were not the same size. I attached the cards, back-to-back, two cards to a flag. I matched the card size as best as I could and adhered the backs of the cards together. This gave the cards strength for flipping. I will treasure this little book for its contents and for its cute look.
Think about the possibilities for some treasured event like a birthday or wedding. You could collect the cards in one place for sharing.

Alligator Juniper Trees

I like to explore the wilderness and I particularly love the shape and form of trees, rocks, and boulders. Today I would like to share with you one of my favorite trees, the alligator juniper. I hope you enjoy these alligator juniper photos and that they help you to appreciate their character as much as I do.

These trees are fairly common here in Prescott. They take an incredibly long time to grow because they live in such an arid landscape. When I walk in their shade, down nearby hiking trails, I take note that some are hundreds of years old.

This is a nice specimen with a full canopy. I took this photo on Prescott trail 62, near The Ranch at Prescott. This tree could be a couple of hundred years old. Not many of the trees that I've seen are this symmetrical or this full.

I'm not sure why some of the alligator juniper branches die and break off, but this seems to be pretty common also - at least around here. I took this photo on Prescott trail 301 (near the Lynx Creek Pueblo ruins). It was sheltering a nearby, hollowed out alligator juniper tree tunk (below).

I just had to stop and take several photos of this hollowed out, dead, alligator juniper tree tunk. It reminds me of a crazy, pointed crown. The colors are lovely, and the branch near it is covered with green moss.

Alligator junipers have a very distinctive bark with a scaley appearance (thus the name). The scale colors range from gray to brown.

As the trees form branches, the scales grow around them. When the branches die and fall, they leave a distinct "hole" around what is left of the dead branch.

While the trunks have a scaley pattern, the branches have the look of shaved chocolate - brown and peeling away (yum).

On Prescott trail 62 in January, I came upon an alligator juniper that had dropped most of its berries. This is a close up of just a few of the thousands of berries that blended with the carpet of juniper needles.