New Beginnings 2 for Country View Crafts

Hello everyone and welcome to my second DT post for today, if you've missed and would like to see a little shadowbox frame for the new Vintage Journey A Little Bit French challenge please pop over HERE.


I thought I would design and make a little book for you today for my second piece for New Beginnings at  Country View Crafts challenge and I took inspiration from my friend Astrid, who late last year made a positivity journal in which she is adding fabulous quotes and each page is in her amazing mixed media style.

1. To start cut  a piece of card 22 x 10.6 cms and score as in the photo below.

2. To give it some strength but also to give it a shabby style I covered it with Decoart acrylic gesso. I particularly like this make because it gives the card some pliability. Dry it – I used a heat gun.

3.Cut a second piece of card 20 x 10 1/2 cms and again cover with gesso, this is going to become a small masterboard from which you will make front and back panels for the book cover.You can see I am not worried about this being a smooth surface as I want textured effects.

4. When the gesso is dry add in textures with masks and texture paste. Leave to dry out.

5. In the meantime stamp your chosen images onto white tissue paper and any you want to layer up to create dimension, stamp them again on white card. I used a mixture of watering can, cornflower blue, coffee and black archival inks with Tim Holtz Nature walk stamps. The little eggs were over stamped with the mottled egg stamp using picket fence distress paint.

6. By now the front cover was dry so I set about introducing some colour and distressing around the edges and down the two side spines. I chose picket fence, antique linen and frayed burlap distress paints. I dabbed them all round randomly and then took a stiff paintbrush and used the stippling motion to blend them together. The wet paint makes the card crinkle but don’t worry it will all add to the shabby effects.

7. Next I introduced colour to the masterboard dripping and drying stormy sky, tea dye and frayed burlap distress inks watered down. When happy with what I had achieved I cut the panels to size and distressed and inked the edges with walnut stain.

8. Time now to ‘tear’ the tissue paper images using a paintbrush , water and something to pull the wet paper apart.. In fact having now got the designs of the panels in my head I only did two of them, the nest and the feather. I also cut out all the other images I needed from the card and made myself some chatty words to fit the theme of the challenge.

9. The nest and bird were painted with distress inks and layered over the tissue paper which was adhered to the textured surface with matte medium and the quote added.

10. I followed the same process with the other panel and I covered the bluebird with glossy accents and left overnight to dry.

11. Next I needed to make the note book to go inside. I cut a piece of paper from the Wallflower paper stash (if you have seen some of my recent projects you will know I am in love with these papers). Cutting  and scoring it the same as the cover then trimming a couple of mms off each side so it would fit in. Ink all the edges and stamp/mask randomly over it. This will be the inside cover.

12. Cut the pages – I made mine 19 x 10 cms, scored each one in half and really creased the edges well with a bone folder. The number of pages is a personal thing and dependent on the thickness of the paper/card that you use.

13. With bulldog clips clip the pages and the longer cover together – making sure all the creases line up and it is perfectly flat - and mark an odd number of sewing holes down the scored line – mine are at 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 cms from one edge. With an awl pierce the holes right through. (Usually I would add some book scrim to the back to stop the thread pulling through the card but I couldn’t find it when I needed it, but even a piece of thin strong fabric would do).

14. From the back start sewing the pages together moving up and back down the crease again tying off the thread at the back.

15. The edges of the pages will now need trimming, I used a ruler and a knife.

16. Time to glue the cover onto the base, you can use strong tape or wet glue – I used matte medium.

17. Adhere some ribbon to the front and back cover.

18. Then adhere both the front and back covers and I also cut a panel from the Wallflower stack for the little side-panel.

19. A birds-eye view so you can see the pages in place.

20. I decorated the first page to get me started and used one of the gelli prints I had made recently for A Vintage Journey Destination Inspiration post.

21. The finished booklet.

Phew a long post but lots of detail and process steps. I hope you find it useful.

Do pop over to the CVC blog to see the amazing projects in the initial challenge post and to get some inspiration to come and join us this month and don't forget that Susan has her fabulous on-lineshop with the most amazing prices and free P&P in the UK. You might well be the winner of a £20 voucher to that shop.

Hope you've got some lovely things planned for the weekend. I am off to teach two full day workshops to a craft club near Abergavenny in Wales. I have been looking forward to this for a long time, so I shall be on my way later this morning. I'll let you know how I got on next week and if I can get a signal on my phone I might well be on Face Book over the weekend. (But me and FB have a difficult time together on the phone lol).

Take care.

hugs Brenda 

Un peu Français à un Vintage Voyage

Ok so I’m trying out a bit of French and I have probably got it wrong because it’s decades since I learnt it at school, but you probably get the drift.

It’s the amazing Astrid’s turn to choose and host this new challenge at A Vintage Journey and she has chosen ‘A little bit French’,  in her description she says -

“Give your project that little bit of a French feel. Tim has so many products that can be used to create a Springtime in Paris make, or if that does not take your fancy, why not something grungy and / or vintage but with a bit of a French flair? Think stamps, embossing folders, distress products, the possibilities are endless... Whatever you do enjoy the journey, but take it to France....”
 

So I have made a shadow box frame to tell the story of Cécile.

 

I started by using Tim’s postage stamp frame cutting one in pink coredinations paper and then three frames and one backing in greyboard.

I sanded the coredinations frame and stamped some text on it a little before giving it a coat of clear crackle paint.

I painted all the chipboard pieces in spun sugar distress paint and the bottle in picket fence distress paint.

I began gathering and making bits for embellishing.

 

The background was blended with spun sugar, worn lipstick, victorian velvet and tattered rose distress inks and dried thoroughly.  I stamped the collage stamp from Paris memoirs in tattered rose DI and immediately brushed heirloom gold perfect pearls over it. I added some wrinkle free technique with walnut stain and frayed burlap DIs and some torn Sketchbook tissue tape.

This is Cécile, she lives with her parents in Paris, the year is 1855 and France is at war. Her young man is in Le Garde Imperiale and fighting in the Crimea she looks wistful and melancholy waiting for his return.

I found Cécile’s photo in the Laboratorie paper stash and framed her using the Bigz tag die  I finger washed some watery white acrylic paint over the frame and added two pretty brads.

Whilst Cécile’s young man is in the army she writes to him when she can and in her spare time she also loves to write poetry, keeping it to give to him when he returns.

The pen nib has a natural aged bloom to it as it is a vintage one from my collection. The butterflies are cut using the Butterfly Frenzy strip die.

Like all young ladies of her day Cécile loves to buy some of the most beautiful perfumes that are available in the shops and has several bottles on her dressing table……

The apothecary bottle was made into a perfume bottle with white and silver embossing powders and I added my own spin on the name of a famous French perfume using remnant rubs and the no: 1 (great artistic license here) which was cut from the 1/2 metal number. The Eiffel Tower behind it was cut out from a stamp from the mini classics set of stamps.

…. she also has little jars of imported face cream and lotions sitting on a shelf nearby.

The bottles were painted with picket fence distress paint and I added some strange looking labels

Often Cécile can be found in the drawing room reading and dreaming of when her fine beau will return home......

I painted the word band with picket fence distress paint and before it was dry I rubbed it off leaving the writing white.

....... she hopes that time will be soon so that they can start to plan their marriage.

I also collected together some charms, dabbed them with the same picket fence paint and let them dry before hanging them on the side.

A small fleur de lys from my charm box also shabbied with paint …….

I hope Cécile’s young man comes back to her and that they live a happy life together – I so love happy endings.

I hope you will travel a way on this French part of A Vintage Journey, it would be great to share it with you. Hopefully I will see you there?

Have a fabulous weekend. I won't get to Paris but I will be in Wales having fun on a double workshop for some lovely ladies near Abergavenny.

hugs Brenda xx