Board book Spread 3

Step 1: Tore up various strips of leftover scrapbook papers and attached them overlapping each other and lighty gessoed over them after the glued dried. Rubbed Vintage distress inks over both pages to age it a bit. Step 2:Ripped a wide piece of masking tape and stamped a background image on it with black stazon ink, then attached it to the left hand page. Made a heart shaped image out of airdry clay and stamped it with a text stamp. When dry I added red paint and then gold paint over the top. Attached a piece of magic mesh and attached the heart. Printed off a Heart quote and added it to the left page. Now there were no instructions to add anything else, but since this is my book I decided to add some images to go with the quote..guess I am just a rebel at heart!!

Faux Washi Paper

As part of the board book project we were to make some faux washi paper. The "how-to" can be found at http://trishbee.co.uk/techniqueszone/archives/fauxwashibackgrounds.html

I got a bit carried away with the water on the second piece so it ended up ripping, but I was able to salvage most of it.

This is a messy project so if you don't like inky hands you may want to wear rubber gloves. I ended up with bright fuschia hands after doing this one. However the final result was well worth it.

Board Book Spread 2

Page two Step 1:

Made a wavy line with a pencil, then coloured the page with orange on top and lime green on the bottom.

Step two. Add a wavy red line between the orange and lime green. Took a pencil with an eraser on the end and made dots in white gesso. Ripped sections from a previously gessoed book page and adhered them to the bottom in strips.

Step 3: Coloured the pages all over with distress ink (Frayed Burlap) Made hand made flowers to add to the pages. I did mine with strips of cardstock coloured with fluid chalk inks and stamped a small background stamp on them. I cheated with the one flower as I had a bunch of punchie from newspaper left from another project. Added a flower quote then a bird image printed on vellum to complete the page.

Fish Tip-in

The latest Tip-In theme was Fish and I chose to go whimsical, a I am sure it was not meant to be a page with fish and water.

I started out by colouring the page with Brilliance Sky Blue ink then added the Inkadinkadoo stamp around the edges in Versafine Black. I didn't like the look, so I then added a dark blue pigment ink over it.


I had some Cuttlebug embossed pieces that I had done a few weeks ago and chose the circle one to colour with the Brilliance Sky Blue ink and put it in the middle. I then added the fish image and the little girl talking on the phone.

This reverse side was painted with some turquoise metallic paint. I added the Jelly Fish image from Dover Arts. I Then glued a fish to the little girl and attached it to the Jelly Fish.

Made some bubbles with a dot stamp and white pigment ink. Added fake sand at the bottom and some fish swimming above the little girl.

Board Book Project

On NGS Trish has challenged us to do a board book project. I could not find one that was just plain with no cut outs, but Melissa very kindly sent me one all the way from Australia.
The instructions for this project can be found at

http://artbuzz.wordpress.com/2008/08/10/12-altered-board-book-project/

I have been busy with other projects and have been away a couple of times, but finally got started on this project and am thoroughly enjoying it. We are only to use items we have on hand; no buying new stuff for this project.

The first thing we had to do was sand or gesso the pages. I opted for sanding as I have only a small amount of gesso left.



Spread one, step one was to paint the page with cobalt blue paint or whatever blue we had on hand. When that dried we were to dip a credit card in black paint and make lines criss-crossing around both pages. Next we added white cloud-like pieces over the pages by dabbing gesso on with a damp sponge. We then added a white line in gesso, (anywhere we wanted) on one of the pages and then a bold magazine image was torn out, applied and gessoed over.
The next step was to stamp an image with a mettalic paint along one edge. I chose a turquoise paint and a Fleur-de-lis foam stamp. Next, we added a piece of paper torn from a cheap pocketbook on on the opposite page from the magazine portion. We then were to stencil a letter of the alphabet on the magazine side with black paint and draw around it with white ink/pen or paint.
Last and final steps.

1. We had to find a quotation that started with the letter we chose, and also an image to go along with it. I am an avid reader and found lots of quotes about reading but chose this one, because I truly believe we can travel anywhere in a book, only limited by our imagination.


2. I searched for a picture to go along with the quote and stumbled upon one which really "spoke" to me on the Morgue Files site taken by Clara Natoli of Rome. I downloaded the picture and then matted it with black cardtsock as instructed by Trish.


3. Final step was to add 3 silver embellishments wherever we chose.

Playing around

Adrienne had a post on her blog where she played with some iridescent gift wrap in lieu of using Fantasy Film http://adriennegoodenough.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html.

I was intrigued by the idea and decided to give it a try. However, what I did was a bit different. I did not have iridescent gift wrap, so I used some gold (with silver on the back) plastic type, I also did the technique a bit different from the original one that was used in an Angel Chunky book swap using Fantasy Film.

I attached the gift wrap to the ATC blank with Gel Medium and rubbed the piece with clear embossing powder. I covered it with clear Opal Embossing powders and heat it . I added layers of three different colours of Opal embossing powders.

I reheated it and stamped a background stamp over it with Brilliance Starlite Silver. The Image is from a free collage sheet Download at http://www.digitalcollagesheets.com/



I love the way this turned out and it is too bad that pictures don't show the colours and "sheen" the way they appear in person. I think I will be playing with this idea again, using different gift wraps.
The ATC is going to a friend in an Artist Trading Card group.

Tim Holtz style

Sweetpea has just recently started a monthly swap where we use a style of various artists. Last month was Misty Mawn and this month is Tim Holtz. Luckily, I have a lot of the mediums he uses, and I signed up 3 times.

The first piece is AI (alcohol inks) on glossy cardstock, stamped with an archival black inkpad.

The colours of AI's I used were Wild Plum, Butterscotch and Stream.

The second technique was the Wrinkle Free Distress Inks on a tag. I used Worn Lipstick and Mustard Seed Distress Inks. I stamped the images from Stampington and Inkadinkadoo in Versafine Onyx Black, and added the little washer to one of the flourishes. The grungeboard key was painted with Old Patina Perfect Pearls.

The third technique is using Distress Embossing Powder. I stamped the image with Fired Brick Distress ink and embossed it with Vintage Photo Distress embossing powder. The Distress EP is totally different from others, and it only changes colour a bit when embossed and has a "sandpaper" feel to it.

I then coloured it with Old Paper, Tea Dye, Fired Brick and Old Burlap Distress inks. Finished it off by colouring the edges with Black Soot Distress Ink.

The Grungeboard embellishments were coloured with Peeled Paint and Fired Brick Distres inks. I attached the vintage buttons (courtesy of Annie Mackay) with some thin wire.