Take a leaf out of my book...

Encore Posts

I'm away again for a month or so.  There are some scheduled posts with new creations coming your way, but I'm also taking the chance to do some catching up here at Words and Pictures.   Projects which made their first appearances elsewhere for Design Team duties or Guest Designer opportunities, but which only had a sneak peek here, are being gathered together in the pages of my virtual scrapbook.  I'm calling them "Encore" posts and they're formatted differently (all the way down the centre), so you can spot them easily.

Please don't feel that you have to comment all over again!

Thanks for your comments on my Toilet Roll Tutorial over at the Mini Album Makers blog, as well as my White on White Mobile at PaperArtsy - it's always a joy to hear what you think.

Still on the Encores, and I've got a real blast from the past for you today.  This project goes all the way back to November 2013, but it's just right for the time of year.  It was created for the Artistic Stamper Creative Team blog, where I was on the Design Team at the time.

You could consider it extra inspiration for the Mini Album Makers Challenge, as it's a handmade book, and since the interior pages are only ATC sized, the whole thing is definitely smaller than four inches, so it could also count as inspiration for the current Mini Marvels theme at A Vintage Journey.  How's that for serendipity?!  Here's what I wrote all those years ago over at Artistic Stamper...

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Hello all, Alison (butterfly) here with an autumn mini-journal for you.  There's time for a last breath of autumn before we kick into gear for Christmas, isn't there?!

I had great fun altering this little papier mâché book (8 x 11cm, and there's an even tinier one still to come), and creating a mini-album to go inside.

I started by covering it with some Tim Holtz tissue wrap, leaving the "edges of the pages" just with a coat of gesso (thick enough and on a hard bristled brush, so you get some "pages" showing - I'll see if I can find a picture showing that later).

Next step was to stamp the new Leaves Background onto the front and back covers.  I used lots of Archival inks on the stamp: Sepia, Sienna, Coffee and Plum, all blended on there.

Distress Inks next: Vintage Photo, Gathered Twigs, and probably some Rusty Hinge if I remember correctly.

I ended up giving it a coat of medium to seal it, which meant some of the Distress Inks faded a bit with the brush strokes, but I'm fine with that, as it brought the leaves to the fore again.

Time to create what's going inside.  I cut some pages to size (pretty much ATC-size) and did some wrinkle-free distress technique with lots of warm golden brown inks and stains.  I also added a couple of spritzes of Perfect Pearls Heirloom Gold to the craft mat before smooshing through with the pages, so you get a lovely golden shimmer in places.

I used the gorgeous new Journalling Words #5, one per page - it's the US version of "journaling" with one "l", but I guess I can work with that!  Just love all those fonts.

On the reverse sides I used some of the new Katy Fox stamps - the Leaves...

... and the Dates, again stamped in Archival inks, mainly Coffee and Sepia.  Apologies, this was all done after dark - how early is it getting dark already?! - so these are flash photos.

So, enough of the process, let's see some photos of the finished thing by daylight, shall we?

I love that the spine looks like a real old leather volume, burnished with age.

I added some Tim Holtz Remnant Rubs to the cover.

And look how the mini-album nestles just inside the book.

Here's a close-up of that cover, also using the leaves background and some Rock Candy crackle paint.

More crackle paint inside the cover of the box, with layers of autumnal paint shades.

And here are some of the internal pages.  I interleaved them with some hand-made paper pages, and added some stamping using my all-time favourite Calligraphy Mat, number 19!

Oh, almost forgot... here's the promised shot of the "pages" - click for a close-up if you need to!

So that's probably my farewell to autumnal crafting for this year - it's always a sheer pleasure to play with these colours and images, but with the temperature dropping rapidly and Advent Sunday almost upon us, it's probably time to let go soon!

Thank you for stopping by, and I hope you enjoyed taking a leaf out of my book (sorry, appalling pun, but it tickled me!).  

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See, I told you it was a perfect project for the time of year.  I'm glad to finally have it safely gathered in here at Words and Pictures.  And it's well-timed as additional inspiration for the Mini Album Makers as well as the Mini Marvels at A Vintage Journey (all the links are in the introduction if you're inspired to play along with either challenge)..

Contrary to what it says in the old text, it's not the last of the autumn crafting for this year.  There are, at least, some more Encores on their way to you, as well as a special look back into the past coming soon.  Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I hope you have a great weekend.

Two sounds of autumn are unmistakable...the hurrying rustle of crisp leaves blown along the street...by a gusty wind, and the gabble of a flock of migrating geese.

Hal Borland