Witch's Spellbook with Rachel Whetzel

Hello, out there in Creativeland!! It's Rachel Whetzel, here. It's starting to feel like Fall here in Oregon, and Fall puts me in a spooky mood, so I took some inspiration from the interwebs, and decided to create a Spell Book to add to my Witch's Apothecary Halloween display! 

WHAT YOU'LL NEED to make your own canvas:

• An old phone book
• Creative Paperclay®
• Sandpaper
• Paints. I use Folk Art acrylic craft paints.
• Stain. I used Valspar antiquing stain
• Paint brushes

Get your phonebook sanded up, to help your clay cling to the surface. 

 Because my phonebook had colored pages I didn't want to show, I painted the outside of the pages to make them all look uniform.

 Then, I wet my cover, and started building the "cover" of the book.

 I also carved the words "Book of Spells" onto the cover while the clay was wet, and then painted the cover black once my clay was dry.

 Sand your cover to smooth it out, and create a leathery look to the overall piece. I used gold paint to highlight the title of the book, and wiped off the excess.

 Here's the finished piece, with some of my other Creative Paperclay® pieces from years past.

Thanks for reading! If you'd like to keep up with me, and see more of what I'm up to, I'd also love it if you'd visit MY BLOG and Subscribe! You can also find me on FACEBOOK!

Once Upon A Time Paper Mache Book by Gloriann Irizarry

Once upon a time a beautiful story was written and a legend was born. 

A enchanted book capable of making all your wishes come true was discover and I will be here to guide your creative quest to conquer this project.

Hi my dear followers and friends it is Gloriann Irizarry here to help your imagination and open a book of enchantment . I will show you how to turn a simple paper mache book and transform it to a magic Home decor piece to delight everyone. Who know maybe you want to hide a special trinket or just make a one of a kind box to give to a special friend. It don't matter I will show you here step by step how to complete this OOAK Enchanted Book.

Brought to you by Creative Paperclay

Materials

1 package of Creative Paperclay Material

1 Paper Mache book

Xacto or hobby knife

White Acrylic Gesso

Paint brushes

Acrylic paints ( Martha Stewart Glitter paint, renaissance brown, metallic black, purple and pink)

Elmers school glue 

Butterfly cookie cutter

Flower cookie cutter

Jewelry Key charms

 Old hair brush

Light purple ribbon.

Scrapbook Paper Pack The Once Upon A Stack DCWV 

Once Upon A Time Book By Gloriann Irizarry 

#bygloricom

I start by preparing the paper mache book prime completely with the Gesso medium to reinforce the surface and to achieve a clean final look.

  

I use a big brush and apply the first layer of gesso and waited to be completely dry before I apply the second and final coat of the white acrylic gesso to the entire paper mache book blank.

After the second coat of white gesso dry I use one of my favorite acrylic color Metallics Renascence Brown. I use the X or crisscross painting technique. This will give some nice background feel to the book cover.

Make sure you use the Crisscross technique only on the cover and wait for the paint to be completely dry before the next step. You don't want to ruin the wet paint on our next step.

I place it like this to dry so it will not be marked or damage.

Now the to create the many pages of stories and spells. You might think Oh this is going to be hard. Im not an experience painter. Well don't let the fear take the best out of you. Look all you will need is and old brush and a nice wet coat of the Metallic Black on the page section of the paper mache book and with one even stroke use the brush and brush the paint away. 

The bristle of the brush will remove some of the heavy paint off and reveal amazing looking pages. Do this all around the book to give the box the sensation of a close book.

I had so much fun choosing the images I wanted to display in my book cover right from my Scrapbook Supply box. I choose The Once upon a time Stack by DCWV . The quality of the paper stock is amazing and the styles are super adorable. I love the many designs, embossings and my favorite all the GLITTER. Yes tons of glitter . The beauty is the glitter is not going to be spreading all over and the styles are so tasteful.

I decided to cover all the inside of the book in paper so it look very nice.

I choose Rapunzel golden glitter embossed locks for the left panel of my book.

I wanted to keep the book effect so I chose a letter printed story to cover the right panel of the book.

carefully measure twice and cut once the panel. I use my Elmers school glue and carefully attach each cut panel inside the book . Cut any excess paper .

I cut side panel of a similar style paper and use the Elmers glue to attach the side panel. Make sure you cut any excess paper off so you can close the book completely.

I look at the book and notice something was missing. The spell wasn't written right. So I decided to add some well need 3D details. I added some of my favorite jewelry charms and could not say no to this gold key. I added a nice purple ribbon and glued it to the left page of the paper mache book box.

Ok the left page is all set now we need to match the right side. Uhm! let me think it is going to be a magic story. AHA! nothing better than a magic castle found right on the The Once Upon A Time Stack.

I cut around it and use the Elmers glued to secure it in place. Added 3 pretty flowers and the spell has been casted in this beautiful ooak book

I wanted to give the spine of the book a unique style to match the cover so I cut 2 pieces of the beautiful glitter embossed paper and glued it to the spine to create the old style bind effect.

Now I wanted the give the cover some nice 3D effect so I rolled a clay sheet in to a 1/4 thickness. 

Choose your favorite cookie cutters or clay stamps to create your center pieces. I used my favorite the butterfly and a sunflower using this technique.

Let it dry flat over night or longer depending on how humid is your room at the time of crafting.

I wanted to add more details to pop so I use a nice flower cutter I have to create mini flower to decorate.

I did not wanted the flowers to be flat so I grabbed the other end of a paint brush and give the flower a little pinch here and there to bring those to life.  Let them dry .

I added more details to the flowers by using water down acrylic pink paint the centers of the petals to give them a natural feeling to them. 

For the butterfly I stated with a base of pink acrylic and work my color layers one by one.

Added purple to the center of the wings. 

Use the dry brush method for the yellow acrylic on the edges and accents on metallic green. 

The final touch was sealed with the Martha Stewarts red glitter paint to the center and pink glitter paint to the rest of the piece ans let it dry. this will seal the butterfly and give it the magic touch look.

Use this technique on the Sunflower Creative Paperclay cutout. 

For the cover I use my favorite pattern paper I found on the Stack . I choose a scrap from my paper stack and create the back ground for me to place the nice glittery Creative Paperclay Butterfly and Sunflower i created for this project. I tear the edges out to give it an antique look and glued it to the bottom front cover.

Now that the butter fly and the sunflower are dry we are ready to attach them to the book cover.

Use plenty of glue and place it to your top right corner next to the tittle.

Place the beautiful Creative Paperclay sunflower to the bottom left corner ans let it dry.

I wanted more details to be magical so I glued plenty of Lilly flowers to all the cover.

There is never enough flowers on magic gardens. 

Now I have to say when you open this book I'm very happy the way it turn out and 

 I love how the inside look.

My favorite has to be the Glittery Creative Paperclay cut outs and the Keys.

The more glitter the better. Well that is my favorite magic look. Plenty of fairy dust.

. 

No Magic book is ready with out some keys. I choose my favorites from my stash of jewelry findings and added to ribbon. I secure them to the book with more glue and let them dry.

Now you can hide your treasures in this book.

The Once Upon A Time Book is ready to cast his spell all over your kingdom. 

Now open it if you dare .

I hope you had a wonderful time and feel free to ask any question or comments bellow or email me at @bygloricom

Have a bless day and remember to always have fun while crafting!

Sincerely ,

Gloriann Irizarry 

It Would Take a Man 600 Years...

By Amanda Marks

If you did not get the quote you have never seen the movie Shawshank Redemption with Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman (highly recommended if you have not seen it).  Christmas is just around the corner and I have been working frantically on Christmas gifts for friends and family which leads me to this design team project.  I can not guarantee that there won't be Shawshank quotes throughout this posts.

What do you get for guy friend who has everything?  My husband said it would be cool if you could replicate something from a movie.  The wheels instantly started turning because I have already made him the TIME Man of the Year Mirror from The Big Lebowski.  My husband started to quote Shawshank, which is not uncommon in my house and I knew I had to make the "Bible" with the rock hammer cut out.  Don't worry I did not cut a Bible (my husband would not let me buy a bible to cut up).  So I had to go to plan B which was taking an old Thesaurus and cutting the shape of a rock hammer into the Thesaurus.  I had no idea that cutting the same shape into repeated pages would be this time consuming (I went through 6 Exacto Knife Blades).  It took me close to 3 hours to cut all of the pages I needed.  I will say disposing of my evidence was much easier than toting it out to the yard a handful at a time.

Since the rock hammer would not work without the altered "bible" the pictures of the "Faux" Bible are first.

Not mine but what I wanted mine to look like.

 The Thesaurus as you can see I spilled coffee on it when I was in college so it was well used.

 Three hours worth of work and a huge mess.

I distressed the book with sand paper and paint.  I added a little Tim Holtz Tea Dye Ink to the outside to really age the book cover.

I needed a rock hammer to go on the inside of the book and removable but not change the weight of the book.    What better way to show off the versatility of Creative Paperclay® Modeling Material than to make a rock hammer for my book (I am hoping the people at Creative Paperclay® are Shawshank fans).  The rock hammer was actually really easy took more time to dry than to create and paint.  I also forged the inside message Andy wrote to the Warden (I am actually quite proud of that) because honestly it would not work with out that message.

Once again not mine but my inspiration

Materials:
Styrofoam (I used flower Styrofoam)
Dowel Rod
Exacto Knife
Sharpie® Marker
Aluminum Foil
Creative Paperclay® Modeling Material
Fondant Roller
Sculpting Tool
End of an unsharpened pencil
Paint

1.  Cut foam in shape of a rock hammer.  If you use the template for the book keep in mind the foam should be at least 1/4" smaller than the template.

2.  Cut dowel to fit in book and also have about 1" inside the foam.  Push dowel inside the foam.

3.  Cover the foam and dowel with tinfoil.  This will help adhere the clay to the base without seperation.

4.  Roll out clay.  Cover the base with clay.  Refine add detail - to recreate the nails in the rock hammer take an unsharpened pencil end and push down, repeat on the other side trying to line up as closely as possible.  Allow to dry for 24 hours.

5.  Paint rock hammer to resemble the rock hammer in the movie. 

I guess really you do need one of these in order for it to work...