ATC Shrine For My Art Cards

Hi everyone, hope you are having a good week so far.  Today I am sharing this cute little ATC shrine that I made to display my favourite cards.

I will be using this ATC Shrine with Feet chipboard set which is BD12F in the shop.

I decided on my colours for the inside and outside of the shrine and started off by painting one side of the chipboards with white acrylic.  You can also use white gesso but I had some acrylic leftover and wanted to use it up.

Once that was dry, I gave the pieces a coat of this gorgeous turquoise iridescent paint, just one coat was enough.

For further decoration I added some shiny gold paint splatters and left it to dry.

Once it was dry on the turquoise side, I flipped them over and painted them black using black acrylic, two coats this time.

If you don't like watching paint dry :p you can use a hairdryer or a heat gun to speed up the process. Then it was time to do some stencilling!  I love the art nouveau feel of this stencil and thought it would look great in gold against the black.

I used a type of texture paste called icing paste but if you don't have any you could use any type of texture paste if you want a raised, textured effect, or gold paint if you don't want a raised effect.

Leave it to dry or again you can speed up the process with a hairdryer or heat gun.

I used some PVA glue to assemble all the pieces.  It's best to start at the bottom and work your way to the top as the side pieces have little slots that connect them to the bottom piece. If you do that first you won't have any problems, if you do it last then it will be difficult to get them in place!

Here's a closer look at the stencilled icing paste.

Once your Shrine is assembled, paint the front edges with black paint and touch up any areas that might need touch up.

The only thing left to do is add your favourite ATC or art card and decide where to display your shrine!

You can also see how to make these ATCs on my blog.

I hope you like this idea.  If so, you can find the ATC Shrine with Feet in the shop.

Till next time, 

Elle
Empire of the Cat

Ingredients:

ATC Shrine with Feet BD12F
acrylic paint
stencil and icing paste/texture paste
PVA glue

Fly Away Art Journal Cover

Today I have an altered book cover or in my case, an altered art journal cover, as this particular book is one that I am going to use for that purpose, but first I wanted to decorate the cover!

I'll be using this hardback sketchbook.  I think it might be a Derwent sketchbook but there is no label on it any more so I can't be sure.  It is also approx A4 size (21.0 x 29.7cm, 8.27 x 11.69 inches).

I will also be using this chipboard set - Collage Frame Birds & Ivy - which I had originally thought of using on something else (a tag) but then decided to make it the focal point of this cover instead.  I cleaned off the edges and then painted it with white gesso.

Once it was dry, I painted it with Paperartsy Fresco Chalk Paints in purples and greens.  Here's how it looks against the sketch cover - just a final check of the position to make sure it fits the way I want it to.

Then I painted the sketchbook cover with white gesso and left it to dry.

My plan for this cover was to use some of my gelli prints as the backgrounds.  I have two full A4 size prints that I can fit one on the front (shown below) and one on the back cover.  They are not the same colour, but they are in the same colour family, and the technique used creates a wood plank background. 

I glued them both on to the sketchbook cover using collage medium.

To add more interest to the background, I added some texture paste through two different stencils from Finnabair's collection.  A text stencil in the centre and a wild berries stencil around the outside.

Here's a closer look at the scripty word stencil.

And here's how it will look with the chipboard frame over the top

I decided I didn't like the white edges, so I painted around the edges with more Fresco paint in a combination of purple shades, just using my fingers instead of a paintbrush.

Here's a look at both the front and back covers - I did have to use a small paintbrush to touch up the edges under the spiral binding since my fingers are not that small!

Here's a closer look at the spine, looking very gritty and textural, just the way I like it.

It was now time to adhere the chipboard to the cover and I did this using soft gel and to ensure that it stayed in place while it was drying, I put some heavy objects on top to hold everything down.

This little frame comes with extra birds and extra ivy, both of which I wanted to add on top once the frame was attached to the cover.

Once the frame was attached it looked like this, so now all I needed to do was plan out where to put the extra bird and ivy pieces that I wanted to use.

I positioned the bird in the middle and added the ivy pieces on top and bottom, with the two single leaves in front of the two lower birds, as though they were perched on the leaves.

I glued them down using more soft gel and some heavy weights to hold them in place while they dried.

Make sure to leave plenty of time for the glue to dry and it will hold everything in place beautifully, but until it is dry, be careful not to move anything accidentally!  Here's my finished frame layout.

I felt like my cover could use some words so I used some of these Finnabair word stickers and stuck them on the frame.  These stickers were originally a cream colour so I painted them with the same paint as I used on the frame, only diluted a little with some water to allow the text to show through.

And that was my art journal cover finished and ready to use!

I hope that you found this tutorial useful and inspiring, if you are looking for ideas for your own book covers.

Elle

Empire of the Cat

PROJECT RECIPE:

Collage Frame Birds & Ivy
A4 notebook (or book of similar dimensions)
White gesso
Collage Medium
Soft Matte Gel
Fresco Chalk Paints
Texture paste
Gelli print backgrounds (already made)
Finnabair word stickers, stencils

Woodland Fairy Crown

Hello this is Yolie with my first Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts project. Today I am sharing my version of a woodland Fairy crown using GSLC's Crown.

I prepared the Crown pieces with Golden Gesso and allowed to dry.

Next, I generously added White Crackle Texture Paste. Lots of peeks and valleys as I wanted large crackles and smaller ones too. The thick peeks will result larger crackles while the thinner valleys smaller. Allow to dry, no heat gun. It took about 45 minutes to completely dry.

While I waited for the Crackle Paste to dry, I prepared the intricate scroll piece with Copper Kettle Metallic Lustre. I applied it carefully as to not bend any of the scrolls. Once it dried, I took a cotton cloth to polish.

Now that the Crackle Paste dried, I used Alfalfa acrylic paint. I covered the piece completely and before it dried, I took a paper towel to remove the paint allowing paint into the cracks.

Here I used Dark Brown with a bit of black to cool the color. Using the same method mentioned above, I painted just a few spots and then quickly removed the paint with a paper towel.

Finally, I embellished the crown with gems, pearls, stones, flowers, crystals, gold glass glitter and flowers. I adhered the embellishments with a hot glue and Heavy Body Gel.

Here's a closeup of the gorgeous flowers sprinkled with gold glass glitter.

Thank you for visiting today and I hope you enjoyed my version of a Woodland Fairy Crown.

Supply List:
Gypsy Soul Laser Cut Crown Item H2CR1
Gesso White
Texture Paste White Crackle
Acrylic Paints, Alfalfa, Dark Brown, Black
Metallic Lustre Copper Kettle
Flowers
Gems
Glass Glitter
Hot Glue
Heavy Body Gel
Paint brushes
Spatula