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

More altered papers

Hello all and welcome, specially also to new followers, thank you for coming along on my arty journey!

I am on a mission to use up some of my huge collection of papers, and so I have now finished the second little mini book I have been working on this month.

I have shared in detail in earlier posts how to put minis like these together and also how I go about altering the papers used, if you are interested, you can find descriptions here, here and for the construction of the little book here.

Like usual I have used inks, background stamping, embossing and die cuts.

Most of the stamps used were designed by Gabrielle Polacco.

And here the final two pages, using exactly the same techniques once more, just with different colours.

Most of the dies used are from the Tim Holtz wild flower thinlits set.

And one final tag, to fit in the side pocket between two of the pages:

I embellished the tag with a couple of little home made Tyvek beads and that was pretty much it.

Well, I am glad my little books are finished now, - high time for some different kind of projects and art work, but more of thast in a few days to come. Thank you for your visit like always!

xxxxx

Altering Papers a step by step for "beginners"

Hello lovely visitors and welcome to you all. I am sharing the first double page of another little book with you today:

After the last little book I did I was approached by several people whether I could describe in more detail how I go about altering the papers I used for that one. I know many of you will be quite familiar with how to do that, but for those who are just in the beginning of your crafting journey, - here is a step by step on one way of how you can do this.

I start by choosing papers that are roughly in the colour tones of the scheme I have in mind already. I wanted this booklet to be quite grungy and vintage of course, so the Indigoblu Belle Epoque Mixed Media card stack was perfect for this. I used the 6 x 6 size and this is one of the papers and my very first step was to cover each paper with a coat of clear gesso. This adds tooth and seals the papers which are quite glossy..

I then covered the central part with heavy gesso and while still wet dabbed my finger in it to create a stucco like texture.

To make it slightly less stark I then added some Titan Buff acrylic paint, I used the Golden brand here but you could use Decoart Media Fluid acrylics or Distress Paint in Antique Linen or indeed any other brand you may have. Blend it out with a baby wipe, to avoid hard edges.

Next add a few spritzes of a spray ink. I used Distress Stain Spray in Weathered Wood, but again, use what you have on hand. Using a spray adds depth and interest and will highlight textures, but have a baby wipe on hand to mop up any unwanted areas.

Next I added some stenciling along the edges, using a mix of Archival ink in Sepia and Distress Ink in Rusty Hinge. I also did some background stamping, again using Sepia Archival ink. The stamp I used is a Tim Holtz one from the Curiosities collection.

Next I wanted to add some imagery back in. I usually do this either with stamps or sometimes with the top layer of a paper napkin. In this case I used some scraps of rice paper.I adhered them with mat gel medium that makes them almost translucent. I purchased  the rice paper (as well as many others) on ebay HERE. This lady has the best selection I have been able to find!

Time to create some embellishments. This could be anything of course. In this case I stamped and die cut some elements from a Heartfelt Creations collection. I used a previously coloured bit of a manilla tag. After taking this photo I coloured the grapes still with a coloured pencil.

I decided to stamp and fussy-cut a butterfly as a companion piece to the butterfly that was already on the paper. I coloured it with the same colour inks I had used before, Rusty Hinge and Sepia Archival and also added a touch of Paper Artsy metallic glaze for a little shimmer.

And here you can see how it all fitted onto the page. The final step was to add a quote. On this occasion I used a quote from a Cloud 9 collection of clear quote stickers that I have had in my stash forever, but I found you can purchase them HERE . Oh and I also added some stamping around the edge, this is a Limor Webber stamp produced by Indigoblu.

The page on the other side was done in a very similar way. I just added some texture paste through a stencil still and some strips of fabric for texture,  and obviously used some different embellishments.

Here is a close up of the embellishments still so you can see them a bit better.

Well, I hope this was useful for some of you. There are several more pages to follow still but I will keep those for another day. Have fun crafting and above all enjoy what you are doing. You never stop learning!!

Thanks for your visit like always

Mini book final part - the tags

Hello lovely visitors. Today I am sharing the final part of the little book I made. If you missed the other parts you can find them here and here
The little book has two pockets, just the right size for a #8 tag.

I made them in a similar style to the little book itself and chose the colours so that they would match the pages adjoining the pockets.

I used Pion Design papers that had been gathering dust in my stash and then altered them with Distress Inks, stamps, an embossing folder and in the case of this one, some lace.

I decided to stick with my flowers and butterflies theme. This little butterfly was fussy cut from another paper of the same collection.

Using the same background stamps and similar colour scheme throughout a project help to tie it all tog

gether I find.

Another fussy-cut butterfly from the same collection, but this time coloured a bit with Distress Ink (Scattered Straw)

Below are still a couple of photos of the tags together with the pages they belong too.

Well, that's it for today. I am working on another little book right now. Both are gifts for crafty friends I am going to meet up with in a few week time.

Have a wonderful week everyone and thanks for your visit!

Little Book part 1 - shopping my stash

Hello everyone and welcome. I have been a terrible blogger lately and I do apologize, but life is crazy busy for me right now, and sometimes visiting blogs has to take a back seat, sorry about that.
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.

I made a mini book out of 1 piece of 12 by 12 card, and today I am just showing you the inside pages:

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. This 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. The front cover I will share in a few days time as I made it for a design team piece. 

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. If you are interested to know how to put a book like this together, I did a tutorial a while back, - you can find detailed instructions HERE

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

xxx