It's Friday Guest day and look who has come to join us - it's the amazing Karen. She has created the most amazing project for us today and I'm just gonna hand over to her for all the details. Welcome Karen.
Hi Crafty, Ink Loving Folk!! So exited to be a guest blogger for A Vintage Journey!! My name is
Karen Bearse, I am of French Canadian, Kiwi heritage & live in VA, USA with my husband, teenage daughter & a feisty Siamese cat named Arwen. Also miss terribly my 2 boys away at College (eek). I love all things inky and am a total technique junkie. My style depends on my mood but is usually grungy, colorful and slightly bohemian. A teacher of art journal, canvas, mini-albums, altered books and in fact teaching a Mix Media Canvas Book, my first travel class in Florida in August, a tad daunting. I am also on a number of DTeams with some of the awesome Creative Guides. The quality & inspiration on this blog is amazing! Hopefully I can bring something to the table.
On to my project!! Yay for the theme "All Squared Up" with Tracy Evans! I am lucky to be a DT member with Tracy over on Eileen Hull Designs. As soon as I heard the theme my brain instantly went to The Tardis from Doctor Who. A bit of a geek/fan girl & quot-er of shows, I have wanted to make a book to jot down my favorite quotes, photos & snippets for ages. I have already decided more then one book will be needed but let's start with the first in the series. I just had to use Eileen's Journal die for this as I am totally addicted to making these books. The bonus is the journal will fit 3 books inside, Midori style so I can have separate books for my shows. I hope you follow along & make your own book! There is a supply list at the end of my post.
First cut 2 of the die shapes out of mat board. Flip one of the pieces as shown so you have a front & back piece. One of the issues I have had making books is keeping my back page in the right direction as I work. Sounds simple but then the paint is being slung... so simply mark an arrow in pencil on the page spine which way is up. I marked out where my Tardis was going so and covered the rest of the pieces- minus the spine in super heavy gesso, creating texture with a spatula along the way. Once dry a stencil was used with Light Molding Paste to create my square swirly image. Hot Tip: I wish I had flipped my stencil to intersect the swirls but I am embracing the imperfection!
I was going for a Doctor Who episode look, one of my favorites, where the Doctor meets Vincent Van Gogh. Imagine being a time traveler who can go back & meet some of the greatest artists of all time! With the color scheme in mind I painted the spine Pure Sunshine on both sides. Once dry I cracked the spine to break the mat board, peeled off a strip of paper (I find this helps the spine line up better) on the right, back side of the spine & attached a strong glue strip.
Stamp the outside spine randomly with archival ink. I found the perfect
stamp for this project Starry Swirls. Once dry the spine was painted
with Tide Pool which is fairly translucent with glitter and dries to a
sort of glaze. That makes it easy to wipe off the mist from the next
step and gives the spine extra strength. Next up Color! After masking off my Tardis area with washi tape, I spritzed with Glimmer Mist keeping the like colors in the same areas when re-misting.
Let dry a bit then took the color off the raised modeling paste areas with a paper towel & baby wipe being careful to just pull the paint off the embossed parts. A bit tedious but worth it. You can skip this step if you are using a darker paint on the raised area. I knew I wanted to do yellow & gold so I needed a fairly white surface.
Use a hard foam piece & pick up a very thin layer of paint on it. Slide the foam across the top of the embossed areas only hitting the high points. This helps keep the paint on the embossed areas. I also added a bit of silver to bring out the texture.
Let's cut out a Tardis! I embossed mat board with a folder I have had for years. After cutting out the top 2 "windows" it was painted with Deep Waters & once dry, dry brushed with Raven Black. I made some extra pieces to approximate the top of the police box, was not overly concerned with it being perfect. I wanted to put a light bulb on top for the light but settled for an hour glass charm that was in my stash painted with the same blue. I added some details like photos of my 2 favorite Doctors, David Tennant & Matt Smith.
Adhere the covers together. Overlap the front cover at the spine lining up the book using the middle hole as a guide. I had the idea to use a Doctor Who lanyard to wrap around my book to keep it together. I love the idea of the claspy bit. You just pull it apart to open & click it shut. I did need to make the center hole bigger & add a 2nd hole as the ribbon is quite thick. The Cropodile Big Bite to the rescue! Of course you can always punch the holes before you put the spine together with a regular Cropodile.
There are many ways to thread your elastic cord. I decided to go with most of the cord hidden on the inside. Simply start by threading your cord from the inside to the outside in the middle right hole, leaving a tail that will be tied off when finished. Now go through the lower right hole back to the inside, then bring the cord across the spine & into the left bottom hole & out. Thread it up into the middle left hole to the inside & over the inside of the spine then out the right middle hole. (there will be 2 cords in the middle by the time you are finished). Thread the cord up into the top right hole to the inside & along the spine then out the top left hole. Bring it back down into the middle hole to the inside of the spine. Tie a knot with the tail in the middle of the spine. I really hope this makes sense as it is hard to describe in writing! You want your cord to have enough tension to hold the papers in place but there should be some give so the papers slide in & out. You can actually fit 4 books in with the cord done this way.
I had a Van Gogh calendar & used the painting "A Starry Night" for the inside covers of my book. Using cotton fabric for the covers of my first 3 books seemed a good way to go. Dr. Who, Games of Thrones & Star Wars. I wanted the covers to be strong but pliable so I covered cardstock with the fabric. I think the best glue for this, is double sided adhesive by Therm*O*Web. A dry glue that is nice & strong, they sell it by the sheets & is my go to when adding paper or fabric to my covers. You have options on the size of the inside books the largest can be 8 3/4" (22.23cm) tall x 9" (22.86cm) wide. Simply take 4, 5 or 6 sheets of paper this size & fold the stack in half- voila a book! I went with 8 1/4" (20.95cm) x 8 3/4 (22.23cm) mainly because of the size of my fabric.
The signature pages or inside papers were a bit tougher & caused creativity & brain powers to be used. As I don't live in England, land of The Doctor ephemera & wasn't keen on what I could find on line for paper, thinking of individual episodes was the way to go. I landed on the Paper House Discover line. There is London which of course the Doctor spends a lot of time there, most of the companions also come from England. There is Rome where of course Rory became a Roman & spent 2000 years protecting Amy. There are also maps, travel stickers & even a 3x4 card that says "a cup of tea", perfect for Rose's Mom who was always suggesting tea & in fact a cup indirectly saved the world by moving along David Tennant's regeneration.
Now where are those Star Wars papers I bought in 2010???? The best part about this type of book is I can add pages as I find the ephemera. I also had the brilliant idea to find old calendars to use as backgrounds. Of course at some point I had finally gotten rid of my old outdated calendars-that is why we should never, ever throw anything out! Add that to my thrift store list! If you would like to see a few decorated pages (it's bigger on the inside) you can check out my
blog post here. Thanks so much to A Vintage Journey for letting me play today!!
Supply List:
Eileen Hull The Journal die by Sizzix
Tattered Angels-Glimmer Mist- True Turquoise, Jack Frost, Pomegranate, Merlot Gold
Finnabair Acrylic Paint by Prima -Metallic: Pure Sunshine, Fresh Orange, Deep Waters,
-Opal Magic: Green-
-Sparks: Ginger Magic, Raven Black
Therm*O*Web- icraft Easy-Cut adhesive sheets.
Liquitex- Super Heavy Gesso,
Elastic Cord
Stamp-Starry Swirls by Stampendous
Dina Wakley Stencil- Mosiac Swirl
Photos of Dr. Who- BBC
Doctor Who Lanyard purchased at Hot Topic
Alphabet from stash by Thickers.
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O wow, yes you certainly have brought something to the table Karen - the most fabulous journal indeed and what a brilliant idea to collect quotes and snippets from one of your favourite tv shows, love it. Thanks also for the tip about tearing a strip from the back of the spine to help it line up better - must try that one. I just love your bright jolly cover and how you incorporated the squares on it through the tardis - so clever. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to create such a creative project and explaining it all in such great detail. I shall pop over to see some of the decorated pages too.
Well follow that - if you have been making up some of these fabulous journals like Karen don't forget to show them over on the
Eileen Hull Fan Club Page - there's so much inspiration over there for making them up.
If you have a 'squared up' project to share with us, don't forget you have till the 3rd of August to enter
Tracy's fabulous challenge We look forward to you joining us and also on Monday for another Destination Inspiration post.
Have a wonderful weekend whatever you have planned.
hugs Brenda, Karen and the Team xxx
