Type of Project
Digital Scrapbook LayoutDescription
The December 2014 Layout Challenge challenged us to "create a layout featuring your favorite book, inspired by a book, or a book that has had some kind of impact on your life".
When I was in junior high, a dear friend gave me a first-edition copy of the book Molly Make-Believe, by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott, because the name I have gone by for my entire life is Molly (I spelled it with a 'y' at that time, too). It smelled and looked like an aging book, which I immediately fell in love with. And I fell in love with the story, too, about how Molly uses a serial letter company to win the interest of ailing Carl Stanton. I was already in love with turn-of-the-19th-century literature - HG Wells and Rudyard Kipling are two of my favourite authors - but this book didn't have any of the science or mysticism that those authors had; it was sweet and oh-so-clever.
My absolute favourite part of the book was the Molly Make-Believe poem that weaves it's way through the whole story. And interestingly enough, I later found out that my husband's gamer tag (the name he would put into arcade high-scores or choose for game characters) was "Mr. Man"!
The other elements of the book I decided to highlight are images of the characters, the Serial Letter Company's circular (which I suppose didn't have to actually be circular, but I thought it looked nice that way), and a clock - because time seemed to play a big part in Carl's life as he counted down the hours waiting for the postman. 
I made everything in this layout myself. I used some PixelScrapper templates and PS sundry:
Clock Makers Brush Kit
Vintage Metal Styles (specifically the antique brass)
And various texture overlay templates, but I have no idea which ones ('cause I have just dumped them all into one massive folder).
The vintage illustrations are the illustrations from the original book, acquired from the Project Gutenberg copy of the book. (The book IS public domain, so if anyone want to read it - it can be found in various formats on Project Gutenberg HERE, or on Amazon.Com as a free Kindle eBook.)
The fonts I used are CU-okay and are as follows:
Aspire by Reference Type Foundry
DecoDividers by Sassy Graphics
Clocker by Tipografia Leone
Recent Comments
This is so beautiful, especially the swirl with the pictures.
I love how you incorporated a story with photos!
wow, mollie, that's elaborate! i apreciate how much thought you put into this page & all the work you've done came together perfectly!