Anything Goes At ABAC. . . . . . . . Challenge #1

For my first design team offering at ABAC, I decided to make a book which could be used for journalling, doodling, scrapping or anything else you might want to do!

If you've been here before, you may have noticed that I like to use metal tape on some of my creations so when I saw the article by Sarah Engels-Greers piece in Craft Stamper, it was love at first sight! I used this as  inspiration for my project. I did let Sarah know and if you haven't seen her fantastic work before, you can find it here.

It was wonderful to make this A5 sized book because I used up a whole load of packaging card I'd been saving and I got to use my grunge paper for the first time since buying it (I know, I'm probably the last person in the whole of the craft world to use it!!).

I cut a frame from some very stiff cardboard and glued leaf skeletons and die cuts on before covering it all with metal tape - sorry but I forgot to take a photo of the one I used but this frame is almost identical.

On the frame I used for the book, I attached some metal washers in two of the corners because I wanted my flowers to have a base to sit on. You can't see them very well on the final piece but they are there.

After applying the tape, I used an old pen to make marks on the frame  between the strips of metal tape - you'll be able to see these in one of the later photos.


So, from a nearly naked frame to this:

The finished journal complete with  a 'J' - for journal or Julia?! You can now see how the frame looks when the metal tape is applied, marks are made with an old pen to mask the tape joins and alcohol inks have coloured the tape. I used white mixative for the verdigris type colour along with a mix of blues and greens. This same mix was used to colour the rings and charms which hold the journal together. The flowers and heart are die cut metal covered card as is the leaf in the centre and the one on the back. Espresso alcohol ink was used to highlight.

The back of the journal was given a peeled paint treatment using a Decoart product. The top leaf was prepared as described above and the one behind was painted with acrylic paint to provide depth to the piece and in a matching colour to the one used as the base coat of the peeled paint technique.

The flowers were shaped after colouring and a heart brad - coloured with alcohol ink - was added to form the centre. Just below the flowers you may get a sneaky view of the little washers under the metal tape - if you look hard enough! They are the same brown as the brads and I just think they give a little shadow and depth to the flowers.

A die cut heart was made from the metal tape covered card and this was embossed using a Tim folder. The heart was coloured with the alcohol inks as described earlier and some brown was added to the seams to age the heart. Some jute thread was tied round the heart as a finishing touch.

The main layer under the frame was cut from grunge paper, embossed in a folder and then coloured with distress ink. I love the way it feels and looks like faux suede! Think I may just have been converted to grunge paper!

The pages inside were made from acrylic paint paper with some vintage book pieces glued on for interest. Some gesso was dry brushed randomly over these layers to tone down the print.

I've started adding colour to two of the pages with distress stains as the first layer. After this, layers of stamping and stencilling using archival ink, distress colours and acrylic paint have been applied. They still need work and lots of the other pages are still blank but I will get there! I think these two pages are the stage when you look at them and think 'where do I go from here?', however, I won't worry too much as I know they'll look very different when they're finished. That's for another day, another project though.

I hope that you like my first DT piece as much as I've enjoyed making it - please do let me know what you think.

Please pop over to ABAC - Anything But A Card - and post a link to one of your creations! It's a fortnightly challenge blog so it gives a little more time to get things done and we'd love to see you there. Winners are chosen by the design team and blog blinkies will be given as a reward.

Thanks for taking the time to look at my work. . . . . . . . .