Mini album tutorial for October

Hello everyone and welcome. Today I want to share another little book I made, really just for fun and to use up some of my stash . But before I do so, I want to apologize.  I have been a terrible blogger lately, but while I am with my family in Australia, life is crazy busy for me right now, and sometimes visiting blogs has to take a back seat, sorry about that. Anyway, on to my project, this was made before I left, ready for the new challenge at the Mini Album Makers Challenge blog. We had a fantastic response to the challenge last month! Thanks so much to all of you who entered!

I love making mini books as most of you will know, and once again I am sharing one of my favourite ways to make these little 4 x 6" books,  made just out of one piece of 12 x 12" card stock. I used Kraft card, but any card can be used, though it's best if it is two sided card stock.

Here is how to do it:
1. Take a piece of 12 x 12 and score horizontally at 6".
2. Turn the card 90 degrees and score at 4" and 8".
3. Turn the card back to its original position and cut along the line between 1 & 4 and 3 & 6 up to the middle score line as shown on the diagram above.
4. Start folding like this: Fold panel 1 up to panel 2, then fold both behind panel 3, then fold them down to 4, then behind panel 5 and finally up to panel 6.
5. Turn it sideways so the spine is on the left, - panel 1 is single and will form part of the cover; 2 and 3 are together and can be glued at the top to make a little pocket, or glued together completely for a thicker page; panel 5 and 4 are together and can be glued at the bottom, to form another pocket, or be glued down complete again, finally panel 6 is single again and will form the back cover. If you want you can do exactly the same again to make a fatter book, but I left mine just with one piece of card and made two pockets for tags as described.

This may all sound very complicated, but really when you do it its very easy

Anyway, on to the cover first of all.
I cut a piece of card to 5 3/4 by 3 3/4, just the right size to cover the front panel of my little book, I covered it with clear gesso and added some textural elements: A piece of lace, some cheese cloth, a large flower and a strip of corrugated card.

After gluing everything down the whole piece was coated with mat gel medium and then I added some Decoart Crackle Glaze in certain corners:

Here you might be able to see just a hint of the crackle after it had dried.

Next I selected a number of sprays in some of my favourite colours, you could use any sprays you have. Beginning with the lightest colour I started to add them, using the spray bottles and my paint brush

Here is the effect of the first layer of colour just using the spray. I also added some background stamping over the crackled areas. Then with the help of my paintbrush the colours were deepened, around the flower and over the cracks to show them up more. Any excess was quickly wiped away with a baby wipe. This is possible because I had covered the paper with the clear gesso first..

A couple of word stickers and some foiled rub ons finished it all off.

Now to the inside:
I am still on a mission to use up some of my stash, ink up some rarely used stamps and for this project even used some paints from my watercolour palette that were left over from other projects.

Each little page was pretty much done in the same way. I used some leftover bits of scrapbook paper, cut them to the correct size (3 3/4 by 5 3/4"), and then gave them a coat of clear gesso. As you saw from the cover, his stops the paints from soaking straight into the paper, I then added further colour with the help of some watercolours and Distress Inks here and there, added stamped detail, some crackle glaze and Antiquing Creams and finally some Prima adhesive rub on bits by Christine Adolph, and foiled them with gold.

Below some close ups from the individual pages:

Below finally is the back cover.

There are pockets between the pages, and I will make tags to go inside. The size of the pockets is perfect for a standard size 8 tag.

I hope that my little book  inspires you to join in the fun at Mini Album Makers this month! Do check out the amazing books my teamies have made too, if you have not already done so!
Our very generous Sponsor this month is Gypsy Soul who will be offering a fabulous Laser Cut Prize Pack to one lucky randomly chosen winner! Thank you Gypsy Soul!

Well, that's it for now, thank you for dropping by like always and have a good month!

xxxxx