Taheerah Atchia

Hey everyone! Happy Saturday!

Sometimes an event comes around once in a lifetime, and for many geeks that day is today as Doctor Who turns 50. For those of you not in the know, Doctor Who is a UK show that falls under the sci-fi category (though to me it’s more fantasy/fiction than science fiction, but I digress… ). Anyway. if you’ve visited my blog in the past you may have gathered that I’m more than just a bit of a geek. 😛

I have been looking forward to this day with quite some time, and I’ve been keeping back a very special project to share on this day. Some of you may have seen this on my FaceBook, and I always vowed to post it on my blog someday.

Presenting… The Diary of River Song:

I have to apologise for the quality of some of these photos – they were taken in a hurry when the lighting wasn’t at its best. I’m planning to replace these shots with some professional ones at some point, but for now I hope these aren’t too terrible.

So, unlike most of my blog posts where I go through, step-by-step how I created what I’m laying before you, I’m just going to talk loosely about this work of heart here. For one, I created it over a year ago and some of the precise details escape me. And for two, it would take far too long as this was a culmination of several months’ worth of work and it would be extremely difficult to chronicle all the steps here.

So, this post will be filled with a *lot* of photos, a little explanation, and hopefully many ‘oooohs and aaaaaahs’ from you all. As this is possibly the most amazing thing I have ever and will ever make.

So, I suppose I’d better explain a little what a ‘Diary of River Song’ is, huh? Well, River Song is one of the characters in the show, and she keeps appearing in the Doctor’s life, at various points. We learn that her timeline is kind of running backwards to the Doctor’s – ie when he meets her for the first time (from his point of view) for her it’s the last time she sees him, when he meets her for the last time it’s one of the first for her. Or something like that. It’s a bit complicated. Wibbly-wobbly-timey-whimey, and all that.

Anyway.

As the timelines are so messed up, River keeps a diary of events as they unfold. She doesn’t let the Doctor see it as it contains ‘spoilers!’ from his future. And of course it looks like a TARDIS. And it’s old, and been through a lot of travels, so it’s more than a little worn.

For anyone who’s interested in their story you can read a better explanation here. Warning: it’s full of ‘spoilers!’

Here are a few pictures of the diary from the show, which I used as a guide when creating my own:

I hope you can see just how faithfully I tried to reflect every detail and nuance in my own Diary. Every crack, tear, crease, ageing, weathering, wearing… I tried to capture them as my own. I’ve seen many, many reproductions of this Diary and I have to say, will all honesty and no arrogance, that I think mine is probably the most realistic version out there. That’s how hard I worked on it.

The pages were from a book which I took apart and soaked in a lot of tea, then tore, roughed up and dried. I added some inking and darkening of the edges in some places too. Then I did a very rough stitching (taught myself from staring at some bookbinding photos) to bind the book with twine. It didn’t matter too much if this wasn’t perfect or accurate as long as it held together. The pages being worn and misaligned only added to the authenticity.

I created the liners/endpaper with Fine Linen cardstock, trimmed to size and tea stained again a little, and adhered to the front and back pages of the book securely with (I believe) Scor-Tape.

They are deliberately a little loose with the spine, so the book almost feels like it could come apart if manhandled.

The covers and spine were the biggest masterpiece. I created these from coasterboard (A:Muse has some 8.5″x11″ stock which I used, but couldn’t link to – if you search their site you can find some but it doesn’t work too well to link up).

I hand cut all the pieces that created the dimension on the front. I inked, painted with acrylic paint, inked again, roughed up, added dry-brush ink detail with A:Muse ink in Toffee, and repeated, with layers of Antique Matte Mod Podge in between. This gave the look and feel of an aged leather almost, absolutely fantastic.

Some more detailed close-ups of the cover and spine. You really have to see every inch of it to appreciate it.

As you can hopefully see, this was not just some roughly-thought-out project with no significance. Every detail was meticulously studied, analysed, and painstakingly incorporated into this work.

It was given as a gift to a very special person who would revere it in the way it deserves it. Packaged with a custom TARDIS tag of course, which I created a stamp for myself.

There are a lot more photos in an online album here if you want to take a look. I didn’t want to bore you with them all.

I thought I’d end this post by quickly linking to a number of other Doctor Who projects of mine.

A card for a friend:

A birthday card for my father:

I’m spending today watching the 50th Anniversary special episode in the cinema. I am *so* excited!!! Happy Birthday Doctor!

I would truly love to hear what you think of this project today. I love it when you leave love – and this project deserves it!! Thanks so much for stopping by!

Supplies: