The Business of Men

Hello all, I'm delighted to be back with my second offering this month for the Only For Men challenge at Country View Challenges.  This time it's a mini-album created using mainly the fabulous Idea-ology French Industrial papers by Tim Holtz.

This is a photo-heavy post, just to show you each of the pages and inserts, but I'll try to keep the chat to a minimum!  You'll find all the ingredients used at the foot of the post.

The basic structure is constructed using toilet roll tubes (like some of my very earliest ever creations!).





I chose subtle, neutral papers, cut them to size and glued them onto the tubes (squashed flat, of course) to create the pocket pages.

I folded another piece of the paper, cut to size, into a concertina and cut little slits in the edges of each toilet roll tube so that the pockets would slide over the folds.  Glued in place, that creates my spine and binding.

(I forgot to leave a front page, so glued that on later!)

The outer binding is made from my favourite corrugated cardboard.  It's been painted with Distress Paints (mainly Pumice Stone) and Picket Fence Distress Crackle Paint, and inked over to highlight the cracks.

I added Weathered White and Vintage Photo Distress Embossing Powders for extra grungy texture.











You can still see the corrugated spine above and below the pages, as the cover is larger than they are...












... but I rather like having the mechanics on show, especially in a creation about work and workings.













So with all the pockets glued in place, each toilet roll holder or page can now hold an inserted tag.   And each tag has one of the fabulous Idea-ology tabs so that you can get hold of it to pull it out.












On the front, I've got some layered papers and the first of my businessmen photographic images.











I pressed some Alpha Parts into service for the title, and added some business-like cogs, and a financial embellishment in the form of the Cash Key.  

And when closed, the album is bound with workmanlike twine.











Here's the inside front cover...

As you saw in the photo above, the inner leaves are formed of two large workplace photographs, cut from the French Industrial papers. And I've added a bit of industrial stamping.










I've also stamped one of the brilliant Tim Holtz adverts onto some more of the paper, and mounted that in the corner.

Okay, here we go with the pages...

The first pocket has some more layered papers (everything inked around the edges, of course!).















And the adorable car from Tim's Tiny Things stamp set is perched in one corner...













And this rather dapper chap is the first of the tags to pop up, waving his Bulletin de Commande!
















Turn to the next double page spread...












You get some shameless advertising of manly bits and pieces... well, how else do you do business, if not with advertising?

And these gentlemen have clearly taken advantage of all modern conveniences to turn themselves out so smartly.

All the wealth built on the (tissue tape) machinery in the background, naturally...

Mr Paris himself pops out on the notes tucked inside the pocket.














Over the page again, we have a spread of contrasts.

On the one hand, the intellectual...

... doing all his business with wordy letters, demanding this, that and the other.

And on the facing page the honest labourers, pausing for a moment in their hard work to be recorded for posterity.














Ah... but they have hidden secrets in the pocket.  What's this that they like to do in their spare time, eh?!











Over again, and our top-hatted chaps make another appearance, slightly more in close-up this time...

(I love that the fellows in the back row are the ones from the stamp we all know and love!)











And they're accompanied by the Tiny Things top hat stamp to draw attention to their natty attire.












But it seems they too are slightly partial to breaking free on two wheels in their leisure time (I suspect they have rather more leisure time than the working men too).








Opposite them, it's bowler hats and caps taking on the top hats... a very businesslike group.

None of them looks as though he'd take any nonsense about knocking off early to go cycling!












And if this is the owner of the corporation, I can see why they can't afford to.  Would you risk rousing the anger of those moustaches?!

(He's a Found Relative, by the way - great size to go in a toilet roll!!)














And in the final spread, we have some more captains of industry...














... working hard to fulfil the order forms which come flying in daily.













There's another bit of industrial stamping round the edges, using the stamp from the Remnants plate which echoes the Commute tissue tape.

And another of those wonderful Adverts mounted in the corner, echoing the layout of the inner flap at the start of the album.

(Please don't ask me what the Philbric Electric Co are doing making the steam engine opposite... imagination has no logic!)

A quick couple of shots of those tabs all lined up, front and back...




... and there you have it - if there's anyone still with me!

Time to shut up shop and go home, leaving those Men at Work to get on with it!  I hope you'll come and play Only For Men with us this month at Country View Challenges.

Thanks so much for stopping by again in this busy week here at Words and Pictures.  One more tomorrow, and then a bit of peace before we head for Small Worlds and lots of dollshouse photos next week!


I like work, it fascinates me.  I can sit and look at it for hours.

Jerome K. Jerome

I always arrive late at the office, but I make up for it by leaving early.
Charles Lamb

Without ambition one starts nothing.  Without work one finishes nothing.  The prize will not be sent to you.  You have to win it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Choose a job that you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
Confucius

With the folded spine, and all those hoarded Idea-ology bits (not to mention the hoarded toilet rolls!) I'd like to enter this in the Fold It! challenge at Craft Hoarders Anonymous.

Ingredients used:

Idea-ology French Industrial Papers
Idea-ology Found Relatives
Distress Paint - Pumice Stone, Picket Fence
Distress Crackle Paint - Picket Fence
Distress Embossing Powder - Vintage Photo
Ranger Antiquities Weathered White Embossing Powder
Idea-ology File Tabs
Idea-ology Cash Keys
Distress Ink - Vintage Photo, Gathered Twigs, Walnut Stain
Stampers Anonymous Tiny Things
Stampers Anonymous Adverts
Stampers Anonymous Remnants
Tissue Tape - Commute
Idea-ology - Sprocket Gears and Mini Gears
Idea-ology Alpha Parts Newsprint
Corrugated cardboard
Toilet roll holders
Twine

Colours of the Rainbow

Finally, as I promised you, some proof that I do have colours other than blue and brown on my palette!  Here's my Rose mini-album:

I also want to start showing some of the new techniques and possibilities I'm discovering every step of the way.  

This is a 6x6 album, with the front and back covers made of heavyweight chipboard, and the internal pages based on lightweight kraft cardstock.  The papers for this one are partly from Prima's Fairy Belle 6x6 pad (gorgeous!), and partly from Paper Cellar's Victorian Classic 6x6 pad. 

I found the Paper Cellar pad very much reduced in The Range one day (I guess it's sort of as close as we get in the UK to Michael's but, from what I read about it, oh, how I envy the American crafters having Michael's!), so I bought two or three books of it.  They're nice shabby chic designs in fairly neutral colours, but with plenty of scope for me to get creative dressing them up, as you'll see.  This is one of them on the cover, with additional inking round the edges.

The metal corner edgings were one of my e-bay bargains.  I'm sure you'll spot them coming up again somewhere down the line.

I added some mixed ribbons and strings to the binding rings, some lace ribbon across the centre, and then the silky rose in the corner.  It was originally white (part of a very cheap bridal set, from the same place as the ribbon... the Czech Republic may not do much scrapbooking, but they do do white weddings), so I used my Tim Holtz Distress Markers on it.  

The rose is backed onto some die-cut distressed florals I got on e-bay, cut out of kraft card.  I used pale acrylic to get a matte background, and then inked the colours on, again using the markers to get the detail of veins on the leaves and petals.  Over the top of that I painted some Rock Candy (clear) Distress Crackle Paint, 
and left them to get on with crackling.

I mentioned in the last blog that I'd been playing with the TH On the Edge dies... well, here they come in to their own, I think.  Page by page, different edgings reveal themselves (though I've not got a full set yet, so there are some repeats!).


I love how you get a tantalising little sneak-peek of what you're about to get and, most of all, I like letting it fall open like this, so that you get a sense of the whole paper collection in one go.


Next time we'll take a closer look at the page spreads, and some of the detailing I've been adding to get the Paper Cellar designs to reflect the Prima ones they're being used with.


Thanks so much for dropping by... there'll be more very soon!




I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.
Lousia May Alcott