My “Book of Shadows”

While browsing You tube, I found a tutorial on making an antiqued book from scratch – and I also saw some replica book of shadows from the tv series Charmed.

I loved that series!   I resolved to have a go at this – albeit on a smaller scale -with the aim of populating it with recipes and remedies handwritten using my calligraphy pens.. 

So I sent off for the grey board for the covers and began.

These are the materials I used – greyboard for the covers, with some faux leather a la Sheena Douglass for the cover, which I’d coloured green and run through the cut n boss.  The spine was made using half of the centre of a kitchen roll inner tube.  Because I am a muppet, I didn’t take pics as I went, so pretty much all I have is the finished article.  But hey, very pretty! 

I used my serif craft artist 2 software to create my triquatra for the front cover, and coloured it with promarkers then backed it onto black card and edged it with gold micron pen, before spraying with varnish spray.  I was really pleased with the way it turned out.

The first time I covered the spine, I did it with more faux leather paper and swiftly learnt that it wasn’t going to work, because it split when I tried to close the book.  The trainer used fabric in the tutorial, and there was clearly a reason why!  I found some fabric, but when I had got it on the spine it was a bit pale for my taste. 

I brooded about it for a couple of days and then toned it down using distress ink and gilding wax.  Result!!

For the inside, I turned again to my trusty CA2 and printed off some suitable backing paper onto thin card and stuck it into the inside covers.

I ordered my album posts and corner protectors online as I couldn’t source any in my local shops, but while I was waiting for them to be delivered decided it was now time to turn my attention to the papers. 

The original tutorial linked to a method of aging paper with tea – so I took some basic copy paper and dyed a batch with some nice Assam tea.  When they had dried, I rounded off the corners, and edged all around on both side with gathered twigs distress inks.  For the front sheet, I used CA2 and my laser printer to print off the wording Book of Shadows onto one of the dyed sheets.  I then ran the sheet through the foiling machine, foiling only the decorative Initial letters in gold.  A nice side effect was that the foiling machine melted the laser ink in the remaining letters, leaving them shiny!

      

So, the finished book, in it’s box, and out of it.

This is a close up of the corner protectors that I bought.

And finally, a view of the inside with the album posts and paper sheets in place.

Challenge 133 Crafty Cardmakers & More–Stripes

Our challenge this week has been set by our teamie Leslie – and unfortunately she is moving on to new challenges and is standing down from our DT.  It’s been a pleasure to be on the DT with her – I would strongly suggest you go over to her blog and catch up with her new ventures…

Anyway, back to the card.  The theme this time round was Stripes, and I looked through my stash for suitable paper and ended up looking at my Serif Digi kits.  Like everything else, I keep buying them, and never use them!  This year my resolution has been to use the things I buy, so I used craft artist 2 to pull together the basics of my card. 

However, because I actually like to physically do it, what I did was to make some layers and then physically cut out some of the other things to embellish the card.

The Digikit that most of the components came from was a Daisytrail kit called Sew in Love.  I printed off the stripey paper first, and used that as the base layer on my fave 6 x 6 square card.  I used two types of spotty paper for the next layer, and then realised that you could then barely notice the stripes – so I cut the second spotty square out to show the stripes below.  The flowers were also part of the digi kit, so I printed off a selection (adjusting the sizes for some of them) and then cut them out.  I painted them with some wink of stella pen (clear) to give them some glitz and arranged them on my card, sticking them in place with glossy accents.  I used buttons from my stash for the centres.

All that remained was what to put in the stripy square without hiding them – and of course, the answer is butterflies!  I cut two memory box butterflies out and coloured them with distress inks (gold Pebeo gilding wax on the body) before going over them with the wink of stella pen too.  I attached them with the glossy accents – and was really pleased with the outcome.

One more piece of kit getting dusty in my workroom used!

A quick card…

This card was one I needed super quick – and while I was in work, at that!

I realised during the morning that it was my friend’s birthday the following day – so as I always keep a bit of stash in my drawer at work “just in case” I  rummaged through it and came up with a pullout of paper and images from Making Cards magazine to make my card during my lunch break.  It was limited resources, but I decided to treat it as a challenge.

I used my trusty 6 inch square base card, and used a square of the plain side of one of the sheets as my base layer (don’t you hate it when they double side the paper?  I always feel I am losing a sheet, not gaining one!) and then took some strips from the patterned sides to use as decoration and sentiment. 

I cut the large butterfly out from one of the sheets, and although you can’t really see it in the pic, coloured over the wings with my wink of stella clear pen. 

Finally, I went around the edges in a white gel pen to make faux stitching. 

And hey presto!  Ultra quick birthday card!

Challenge 132 Crafty Cardmakers and More - Love, Love, Love

As Valentine's Day is a heartbeat away our host for this challenge, Lorraine, would like to see your love themed creations. So love, romance, valentine, wedding or engagement will all be suitable.

For my card, I chose a 7 x 5 inch landscape base card.  I am trying (largely unsuccessfully) to reduce the amount of unused stash I have in my room and so I dived into the scrap card/paper and topper boxes to make this card.

I believe the heart backing papers and the image came from a freebie in a magazine as they were all on the same A3 folded to A4 sheet.  However, when I had them layered up, and the small toppers attached with foam pads I thought something was missing.

Back to the scrap card box, and I chose some red card left over from Christmas, and using a stamp set (free gift from a magazine called Happy Day clear stamps) I stamped out the bunting, and then stamped in the appropriate lettering using (possibly Hobbycrafts) small capital letters.  

I stuck the bunting onto some red and white bakers twine with wet glue and when dry, tucked it behind the backing paper and the small toppers with initials on, sticking it with glossy accents.

Thinking of You card

 I like CD Crafting - to have thousands of sheets of images and backing paper on hand is so liberating when I look at the amount of space my existing papers take up!

I recently had a big order for Thinking of You/Sympathy cards and I decided to make the theme floral for most of them.

The CD I used for this card's images  was Debbi Moore's Cottage Garden Moments.

My card base was my fave 6 x 6 inches, and I put the base layer of the backing paper onto it, rounding all the corners with my corner edger.

I used some of the white card left over when trimming down my A4 sheet to make the card base for the topper.  So that it looked more ornamental, I used the inverse corner edger from Xcut to make the shape.  I used a silver marker pen to edge it - really makes the card "pop" and is so easy to do!

I fussy cut out one of the images on the sheet and mounted it on the topper using foam pads.

Finally, I used a silver peel off on another piece of scrap card, cutting the pointy edges "by eye" to make a chevron.

I am entering this card into the following challenge:

CD Sunday - Floral Frenzies