Book Making Using Recycled Materials

Hello everyone, I have a few more projects to share with you today showcasing the fabulous stamps that we brought to last month's TV shows on Hochanda. The collection of stamps had a little bit of something for everyone, and I enjoyed working with them so much. I am sure that you will love them too!

My first project is a handmade book, I love books, and used to buy so many of them. Nowadays, I like to make my own, from simple accordian books, to fabric covered books that I have stitched together and used more complicated bookbinding techniques. This project uses a corrugated cardboard envelope that I received from a mail order company, and I have simply taken advantage of the fold of the envelope to create the spine of the book. I folded twelve pieces of drawing cartridge in half, splitting them into three groups, and these became the signatures of my book. I popped the pieces inside each other, so that I had four pieces of drawing cartridge sitting neatly inside each other, in groups of three. I made three holes up the fold of each group of paper.

I cut the cardboard envelope to make a cover so that it was slightly larger than the drawing cartridge, and made three lots of three holes in the spine, which would enable me to sew each signature into the cover in a simple bookbinding method. There are lots of You Tube tutorials for this, just do a search online for 'simple bookbinding', and you will find lots of help. If I were to make another one of these books, I do think that I would put washi tape on the spine for added strengthening, but I am not intending to put this book through a lot of tough use, so it will probably be okay.

I used bookbinding thread to sew the signatures into the book, but you can used dental floss if you do not have any specialist supplies.

I used black card as a matting layer, this really sets off the zingy colours that I chose for my masterboard background. I used Distress Inks to blend across some drawing cartridge, and added tone on tone stamping using the bubble wrap effect stamp from Make Your Mark stamp set. I added the cracked stamp and circles in grey ink, and some of the word clusters to build up the background. To finish, I stamped the large circle using black ink onto a piece of scrap card, added the words once more, and matted it onto black card, to create a topper. I felt that these words were perfect for a journal, and especially in these uncertain times, they can remind us that life is not so bad after all.

You could create lots of these masterboard backgrounds and cut them up to make cards, bookmarks, book covers, all sorts of projects, it just goes to show that these mark making stamps can be the stars of the show and not just for backgrounds.

For my next project, I created a background of soft greens, and added leaves and a word cluster from the Glorious stamp set using a darker green ink. I stamped the Floral Study onto a smaller piece of card, and coloured the image using watercolour pencils. I edged both pieces of card with Seedless Preserves Distress Ink.

The background on this card contains a bit of everything! I coloured the drawing cartridge using Distress Ink, and added some stamping using the Large Crackle Background stamp. The circles,words and bubble wrap image are from the Glorious stamp set, and I have used the Chocolate Baroque Strip Stencil set. I have stamped and embossed the Poppy Ledger image onto kraft card using white embossing powder, and coloured it using Koh-I-Noor paints.

Finally, a super quick little masculine card using kraft card once more. I used the tape image from Make Your Mark and three different colours of ink; red, brown and white. I then stamped the sentiment onto one of the strips, which is something that Lesley had always envisaged with this strip image. You could change the colours, as some of the other Team members have done, and make really colourful versions of this type of design.

Thanks for stopping by, xx

Grow Positive Thoughts

Hello everyone, I have three projects to share with you today using the stunning Captivating Cacti stamp featured on last month's Hochanda TV shows. This super image has been an absolute pleasure to work with, and I hope that my very different projects will give you lots of ideas.

For my first project, I decided to create a little mixed media piece, and used a 6" x 6" canvas as the base for the design. I chose three colours of acrylic paint; mint, magenta and lime green, and mixed them directly into blobs of white gesso, and applied each colour onto the canvas with a large wet brush. Mixing the paint with the gesso cuts out the need for an extra layer of gesso, saving time, and I am all about getting on with the interesting part of creating my project! I was not too precise about this first coat, as it was simply a base for further layers of paint. I dried the layer with a heat gun. I applied the next layer of paint with a baby wipe, and used long strokes, blending the colours into each other, to get a soft effect. I dried the layer again. While I had the paint on my craft mat, I used some to paint a watery wash onto some drawing cartridge to use later.

I stamped the Captivating Cacti image onto drawing cartridge three times, (I also stamped the image once onto the canvas). I coloured parts of the images with Inktense pencils and a water brush.  I added darker colours for shading to create depth and then I cut out the images. I added yellow seed beads to the centre of the smallest piece of flower head, using Glossy Accents as a glue, and let this dry thoroughly. I adhered the cacti image to the canvas, building up the layers. I added some shading to the base of the image on the canvas, to 'ground' the picture, again using Inktense pencils and a water brush.

I stamped a sentiment from the Blossom and Grow stamp set onto the spare piece of drawing cartridge. I masked the words so that I could stamp each word separately, using masking tape before I inked the stamp. I cut each word out and edged the pieces of card with Seedless Preserves Distress Ink, before adding the sentiment to the canvas.

My second project was a much quicker design! I used a piece of kraft card, and stamped the image using Versamark and white embossing powder. I painted the image using Koh-I-Noor paints. The image pops off the background, and the paints work really well on kraft card. I have used the same sentiment, but in one piece this time. This card would make a great pick me up for a friend who is down.

 Finally, I made a little brooch using Soft Form Relief Paste. We often tell you on the blog and on the TV shows how versatile Soft Form Relief Paste can be; how you can use the medium for so many things, that you can sew it onto your bags and mixed media projects, etc. I decided to make a practical demonstration of how this can be done. I coloured some Pearl Soft Form Relief Paste with some purple Brusho powder, and spread it over the main flower head of the image that I have been using throughout this blog post. I then left the paste to cure overnight. Once the paste has set into a film, I peeled it from the stamp, and trimmed around the flower image. I adhered the image to some felt, using some strong double sided tape, then sewed some seed beads to the centre of the flower. I also added a brooch back at this point.

I very carefully dry brushed a tiny amount of paint onto the brooch to add some extra color to the flower, using red and teal tones. If you add too much liquid to the Soft Form Relief paste when it is a film, you will dissolve the film, so a light touch is essential. As you can see, the purple Brusho has coloured the Pearl Soft Form Relief Paste brilliantly. I have used this technique before and you can see my project here.

I will be back later in the month with some more projects for you, but in the meantime, do keep checking back for inspirational projects from my Team Mates. Thanks for stopping by, xx