Dies, Stencils and Stamps Blog Hop

Hello everyone! This week Eileen Hull's Inspiration Team and Stencil Girl are having a fun blog hop. Lots of inspiration! This is the second day of the hop and it is time for my post.

 

 

I made a bird mini-book, and this is a tutorial too.

If you follow my blog, you probably already know that I love birds, and the Speckled Bird stencil was calling out to be the star of a mini album cover. This is just the sweetest bird. The album was made with Eileen's Sizzix Mini Album die, which is a favourite of mine since it is so versatile. You can make the album in two sizes, here I did the chunkier version with a wider spine. I like to take photos of birds, and I am going to fill this book with those photos, both photos I've already taken and future ones. You can see another tutorial for a similar album here.

 

Start by die cutting the album from mat board. This is an XL die, so you need the Extended Cutting Pads. I didn't use the closure flap. Here you can see the scorelines for the spine. If you make a thinner album, you only use the centre piece for your spine. I used all three.

Cover the album with old dictionary paper using multi medium.  

 

Smear gesso over the paper, but let some of the text show through.

Paint the covers with brown shades of Distress Paint. I used Antique Linen, Frayed Burlap and Walnut Stain. Leave to dry.

Mix Salty Ocean and Broken China into one blob of White Embossing Paste and mix Peacock Feathers into another blob. I like to use a piece of plastic packaging as my palette. Carefully smear through the Speckled Bird stencil, varying the two shades of paste.

Mix some Walnut Stain into white paste and add dots with a dot texture stencil.

 

When the paste is dry, add some dry-brushing with Walnut Stain paint.

I cut twelve pages from smooth watercolour paper, making them slightly smaller than the covers. Smear Antique Linen, Gathered Twigs, Salty Ocean and Peacock Feathers Distress Ink on your craft sheet, mist with water and press the pages into the ink (I forgot to take a photo of this step). Repeat for all the pages, both sides. When the ink was dry, I added more stencilling to the pages, for example, using the Three Crows stencil and the dot stencil.

When the paste is dry, I stamped the pages here and there using stamps from Eileen's great Craffiti Picket Fence stamp set. The wooden window and fence were stamped with Potting Soil ink. The background stamps were stamped with Salty Ocean and Gathered Twigs, misting the stamp with water before stamping.

Layer the pages two together into six signatures. Poke two holes into each page and thread a thin piece of twine through the holes.

Cut a piece of natural sticky-back canvas for the spine and glue it in place with multi medium. Poke holes at three intervals and thread the twine through - two signatures into each hole. Tie a tight knot. I added a Tim Holtz Heart Charm to the spine. 

The textures of the text background, paint and embossing paste are real nice and makes you want to reach out and touch the book. I gave the bird a pearl for an eye.

I also used one of my favourite quotes on the cover.

Just a quick look at some of the inside pages. Here I used the Bird in Window stencil.

Some of the pages only have stamping and no paste.

 All the edges were inked with Gathered Twigs.

I like having an album ready, so that I can just adhere the photos once I develop them.

The back of the album looks like this. You could also add more stencilling here.

 

There is a great prize package to be won. All comments left for the entire week August 18th - August 22nd on all blogs in the hop will be eligible for the giveaway. So the more blogs you comment on, the larger your chance is to win. Comments close Sunday, August 24th @ 11:59PM Central Time. Winner will be announced on Tuesday, August 26th.

 

These are the stops on the blog hop for today:

Stencil Girl Talk

Gwen Lafleur

Mary C. Nasser

Anna-Karin Evaldsson (you are here)

Michelle Zerull

 

And don't miss all the inspiration posted yesterday, and during the remainder of the week.

Thank you so much for stopping by here today! Next stop is the wonderful Michelle Zerull.

 

Happy crafting!!

 

Anna-Karin

 

Supplies:

Surfaces: Sizzix Little Sizzles White Mat Board; Canson Multi-Technique papers; Ranger Natural Sticky-Back Canvas; old dictionary pages

Dies: Sizzix: Mini Album 

Stencils: Stencil Girl: Speckled Bird, Three Crows, Bird In Window, Journal Texture 1

Stamps: Eileen Hull Craffiti: Picket Fence

Ink: ranger Archival Ink: Potting Soil; Distress Ink: Gathered Twigs, Antique Linen, Salty Ocean, Peacock Feathers

Paint: Distress Paint: Antique Linen, Walnut Stain, Frayed Burlap, Salty Ocean, Broken China, Peacock Feathers

Medium: Ranger Multi Medium Matte; Stamper's Anonymous Wendy Vecchi: White Embossing Paste

Embellishments: Tim Holtz idea-ology: Heart Charms, Trinket Pins; Prima: Engraver Alphabet Stickers