Books changed me forever and they inspire me every day in ways I never could have imagined. When I open a book, the world gets very quiet and the only thing I know is the story that I am suddenly apart of. This is a combination of thoughts, musings, and ramblings about how the books I have read have taken me not only on an adventure through my imagination, but have seeped into my ordinary life and made it extraordinary.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Vampire Academy Inspired Book Covers



I love the Vampire Academy series which I discovered this year. But I am not a huge fan of the Vampire Academy Series book covers because they do not represent how good these books are because I think they look cheesy. The people on front do not even look like the description of the characters. So I thought I would that a shot at making my own. I looked at other covers from other countries but nothing struck my fancy. Its really hard to find a creative background not involving people so I stuck with the fence on the covers.

The second one could be wallpaper too for a computer desktop.




Friday, June 25, 2010

Wings Inspired Character Picks

This is my lame attempt at a movie poster and alternate bookcover featuring my picks for the cast of "Wings." I did some searching for fan videos of who people thought the cast should be since Disney has bought the rights to make it into a movie. The person I could most agree with to play Laurel was Annasophia Robb so I used her as my inspiration for a cover featuring Laurel. And I think Arron Johnson would be a great Tamani so I used him for the "movie poster." Lucas Till might be a good David so I used his picture for one of the wallpapers below.





Wings Inspired Wallpaper and Cover Artwork

So I saw "Wings" by Aprilynne Pike when I was walking through Sam's and fell in love with the cover art. I knew I had to have this book even though I really had no idea what it was about. Turns out it was a great story that matched the cover art perfectly. So yes, sometimes you can judge a book by it's cover. I love it when that happens!

I looked around on the internet to see if there were any wallpapers and I was surprised to only find two! I decided to take the cover and crop it into little pieces and do some color altering and make my own.













































Thursday, April 8, 2010

Torment Inspired Book Cover Artwork

I absolutely fell in love with the book "Fallen" by Lauren Kate and when I heard that she was releasing three more books in the series with the second book coming in September 2010 I was thrilled! I could not wait to see the cover of the next book "Torment" because I was so taken with the book cover for "Fallen."
I about died when I saw this cover and knew with my my combined love of this cover, the characters, and graphic design I had to do my own mock-up of the cover. I had so much fun with this and I can not wait for the book to come my birthday month!!!





Thursday, April 1, 2010

Fallen Inspired Wallpaper Lauren Kate

I just read the book "Fallen" by Lauren Kate and I must say I am IN LOVE! Inspired by this book I decided to make some "Fallen" wallpaper because I adore the cover art and I happen to love graphic design which makes projects like this fun.
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights or claim the rights to the cover art. I just jazzed it up a few different ways with color, font, and texture.
























I think it is fun to imagine what Luce would look like in a white dress.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Beautiful Creatures Inspired Lena Duchannes Necklace


I recently finished a book called 'Beautiful Creatures" by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl which was a fantastic story about a guy who lives in a small southern town where nothing ever changes. . . until he meets a girl named Lena Duchannes. There was a part in the book that talked about a necklace Lena wore. . .

A girl who wore a long silver chain around her neck, with tons of stuff dangling from it — a plastic ring from a bubblegum machine, a safety pin, and a bunch of other junk …”

“They aren’t really charms, just things that mean something to me [...] I know it looks like a bunch of junk. But I’ve never lived anywhere very long. I’ve never had the same house, or the same room for more than a few years, and sometimes I feel like the little pieces of me on this chain are all I have.”


"I touched her charm necklace. It all looked like junk, and most of it was — the most important junk in the world. And now it had become my junk, too. A flattened penny with a hole in it, from one of those machines at the food court across from the movie theater, where we had gone on our first date. A piece of yarn from the red sweater she had worn to go parking at the water tower, which had become an inside joke between us. The silver button I had given her for luck at the disciplinary meeting. My mom’s little paper-clip star."

I love this idea and started thinking about if I had a necklace of my junk, what would I put on it? Inspired by this idea I decided to make a necklace of my own! And here is the result!!!



I love the way this necklace turned out because each charm is not only meaningful to the character Lena Duchannes but also to me. Below is the list and description of each charm and its importance.

Locket-This is suppose to represent the locket Ethan and Lena found which gives them visions of the past and clues to Lena's future. This is not a traditional locket shape which I like and I love that you can hold a picture or something that means a lot to you close to your heart.

Raven- This of course stands for Ravenwood Manor, Lena's home and the home of her uncle Macon. For me birds represent nature and all things living and I just happen to love bird necklaces.

Crescent Moon-This is an ode to Lena and Caster girls everywhere AND when turned in this direction it also makes a 'C' which stands for my name, Casey.

Key-This represents Ethan holding the 'key' to Lena's heart and basically to her soul. I just like the idea that keys represent opening something that may be familiar or unfamiliar in our lives.

Heart-A huge part of the story is about the relationship and love between Ethan and Lena and I am a big believer in love and the relationships in my life are very important to me, platonic or not.

Green Stone-In Beautiful Creatures Lena is described as having bright green eyes and what do you know, I also have green eyes so this was the perfect addition!

Sunday, March 28, 2010

New Moon Inspired Artwork (Twilight Series)

(Bet you thought this was the actual cover. Nope! Done by yours truly in colored pencil.)


I absolutely fell in love with the Twilight Series ever since I first read them in October of 2008. Because I loved the books so much I knew I had to do some project related to the book covers because they are breathe-taking. I was inspired to do a series of three pictures of the New Moon book cover in three different mediums-oil pastels, paint, and my favorite colored pencil. Below are each of the pieces and a final picture of how I displayed them in my room. I had so much fun with this and I know I will be attempting more Twilight related projects in the future!


This is a different version from the large picture at the top with font and color differentiation. It was the done in colored pencil and believe me, it took a lot of time to find the right colors and sketch the outline. But it was so worth it in the end!


{Above}Here is the picture without the words. (Medium: colored pencil)

{Above} (Medium: acrylic paint)

{Above} (Medium: oil pastel)


{Above} And here is how I displayed them in my room!