Fall and Winter Altered Notebooks - Christmas Gift Ideas - Part Three

Hi friends,

I'm here with my final notebook gifts tutorial to share with you all, this time using a 3D tree chipboard in a different way than intended!

So here we go!  As I mentioned in my last post, I decided to make some custom notebooks for some Christmas gifts and I thought the notebooks would be easy to post and easy to customise to each person.

Here are the notebooks I'm using, which are A5 size, and a popular size with bullet journalists so you will probably know the size I mean.  It's approx 5.5 x 8.x inches. The process is the same so I started by painting the covers with black gesso, to give myself a good, primed base especially as these are clothbound books.

While that was drying, I sorted through my chipboards and selected a few that I might potentially use, keeping in mind the person for whom they were intended.   I had already made this notebook and this notebook and also this notebook. For these final two notebooks I am using fall and winter inspired chipboard elements and sharing this 3D tree chipboard between the two books.

This chipboard has two parts that slot together to make a standing 3D tree, but I decided to cut both parts down the centre and then line up the matching pieces to make a double thickness and glued them together. If you didn't want them as thick as this, you could actually make four tree notebooks, using one half tree on each.  I wanted a little more dimension, so I doubled them up.  You can see the double thickness in the photo below.

For the winter notebook on the left, I also used three snowflakes from the Snowflake Shape set, and some die cut letters using some cereal box cardboard and glued everything down.  Then for the fall notebook, I also used two words from the Fall Words set - FALL and MEMORIES - and glued everything in place.

On the back cover of the notebook, I used an A5 sized wood slice stencil and some paper texture paste to create a dimensional pattern on the Winter notebook...

and the Fall notebook...

Leave the paper texture paste to dry and then paint everything with black gesso.

Now it was time to start painting!

I painted the Fall notebook with this gorgeous golden brown metallic acrylic, then used a Metallic Russet to paint the words.  Here is a look at the back cover which is stencilled with the texture paste and then painted.

The fall cover - complete or not complete?  I can't decide!

I felt like it needed something more in the cover so I die cut these leaf clusters and painted them with a variety of gold and copper metallics.

Then I cut them into smaller leaves and drew some veining on them with a dark brown pen.

I kept two leaf clusters whole and stacked and glued them together.  Then I punched a hole near the top and attached it to the bookmark ribbon which is part of the notebook.

And here is the finished Fall notebook.

Now it was time to focus on the Winter notebook.

For this notebook, I used this great icy blue metallic paint for the cover, and then used silver metallic paint for the snowflakes and a dark teal metallic paint for the text.

I hope you enjoyed this project and that it has given you some gift ideas for reasonably quick and customisable gifts that can be used all year round, but are perfect last minute Christmas gifts that can be tailored to the recipient.

Till next time,

Elle
Empire of the Cat


PROJECT RECIPE:
GSL Cuts - Snowflake Shape Set D38A, Fall Word Set D81E, 3D Chipboard Tree 6" C1B,
A5 clothbound notebooks
Black gesso
Finnabair Metallique Paints
Jacquard Lumiere metallic paints
Tim Holtz Handmade font dies
Glue
From Stash: cereal box cardboard

Favorite Recipes Altered Notebook - Christmas Gift Ideas - Part Two

Hi friends,

I am deep in gift making mode still so I have more notebooks to share with you, this time using some cool baking-inspired chipboard elements.

So here we go!  As I mentioned in my last post, I decided to make some custom notebooks for some Christmas gifts and I thought the notebooks would be easy to post and easy to customise to each person.

Here are the notebooks I'm using, which are A5 size, and a popular size with bullet journalists so you will probably know the size I mean.  It's approx 5.5 x 8.x inches. I started by painting the covers with black gesso, to give myself a good, primed base especially as these are clothbound books.

While that was drying, I sorted through my chipboards and selected a few that I might potentially use, keeping in mind the person for whom they were intended.   I had already made two notebooks and was now on to the third. I wished that I could think of something for my third notebook which was for a friend who has just become head lunch lady at her kid's school.... Of course - the Kitchen Utensils set would be perfect! I was on a roll!  I also used Favorite Recipes for the title on this cover, and lined up the cord from the hand mixer so it looked like it was attached to the F in favorite.  This Favorite Recipes Title shape actually comes with a wooden spoon along the bottom of the Recipes word but I had to cut it off so I could arch the letters and make them fit on the cover.  I added the spatula and spoon to the bottom for the cover and glued everything down.  Then I used a few more of the utensils on the back cover.  There is one more shape left, an oven glove, which you will see at the end, but that also got painted with gesso!

Normally this is my favourite part of the process but this time I just didn't seem to be able to decide how to paint this one!  So rather than paint with metallics, I decided to try matt acrylic in a nice light blue that was giving me 50s Diner vibes and thought it would go well with the recipe book idea.  So I painted it blue...

I left it to dry overnight but in the morning I wasn't so happy with the colour - well that's not exactly true, I do love the colour but not for this project.

Time was not on my side and I was very conscious of the pressure of needing to get this finished and posted!  With that in mind, I painted it yet again...

This is much better!  I used a gorgeous teal metallic acrylic and painted the entire cover and left it to dry again.

Then I used silver metallic paint and old silver wax to colour and highlight all the little elements on the cover.  I like to use my fingers for this job as they are easier to clean than brushes, though you can use old paintbrushes for this job, or stippling brushes also work quite well.

If you want a less organic approach, sketch out a plan for your notebook covers, plan and test your colours, assemble all your elements in advance, and then glue them down and gesso them all at the same time.  As I started off with the intention of making Christmas cards, I did not have a plan in place for notebooks but was still able to make it work!

Oh and just because I felt like it needed a little more personal touch, I added her name onto the rolling pin using some Tim Holtz dies, and I also used the oven mitt chipboard from the set, and covered it in embossing powder, and tied it onto the bookmark ribbon as a little extra!

I hope you enjoyed this project and that it has given you some gift ideas for reasonably quick and customisable gifts that can be used all year round, but are perfect now for Christmas gifts that can be tailored to the recipient.

Till next time,


Elle
Empire of the Cat


PROJECT RECIPE:
GSL Cuts - Favorite Recipes Title D54I, Kitchen Utensils D54J
A5 clothbound notebooks
Black gesso
Finnabair Metallique Paints
Finnabair Impasto Acrylics
Finnabair Wax
Jacquard Lumiere paint
Tim Holtz Alphanumeric dies
Wow embossing ink and embossing powders
Glue
From Stash: cereal box cardboard

Altered Notebooks - Christmas Gift Ideas - Part One

Hi crafty friends,

It's Elle here from Empire of the Cat and I am in full-on Christmas making mode this week - Christmas cards, Christmas projects etc and so I have some Christmas gift ideas to share with you and this is only part one!  I actually went into my art room with something totally different planned (Christmas cards) and somehow managed to produce these notebooks instead!

So here we go!  I decided to make some custom notebooks for a Secret Santa exchange that I'm part of and I thought the notebooks were a great idea and easy to post, but a plain black notebook isn't so exciting on its own, unless it's customised of course!

I have quite a few of these ruled notebooks as I also use them for bullet journalling, so I grabbed a couple of them off the shelf and started by painting the covers with black gesso, to give myself a good, primed base.

While that was drying, I sorted through my GSL chipboards and selected a few that I might potentially use, keeping in mind the person for whom they were intended.  I was actually talking to my friend last week about how much she loves fairies, so these Garden Fairies were the perfect choice for her, plus she mentioned a recently purchased mushroom stamp so I thought she might also love this Mushroom Shape set, so I put them both together, with the little seated fairy on top!

 All that was missing was some words to add to the cover, so I pulled out my Tim Holtz alphabet dies and die cut MAKE A WISH using some old cereal box cardboard.  I cut each letter twice and stacked and glued them on top of each other to give them some strength and dimension.

 For the second notebook, I chose this cool GSL Pen and Ink Set for my writing buddy, using both of the quill pens from the set, and die cutting some letters to say TELL YOUR OWN STORY.  I glued it all down and left it to dry.

(I actually ended up making a couple of extra notebooks so I decided to split this into multiple posts, so I have almost hidden the third notebook in the above photo and that will be covered in part 2.) 

So once everything was dry, I painted over all the chipboard pieces and cardboard letters with black gesso.

Then it was time for my favourite part of the process - the painting!  I chose different colours for each of the notebooks and I tried to tailor each one to colours that the recipient liked.  I used a combination of liquid acrylic paints and metallic acrylic paints - pinks and purples for the fairy/mushroom cover and black, brown and golden colours for the quill pen cover.

Then after all the paint was dried I went over everything with Metallique waxes to add highlights and additional colours to each cover.  I use my fingers for this job as they are easier to clean than brushes, though you can use old paintbrushes for this job, or stippling brushes also work quite well.

 Again I worked very organically on this project, adding elements on the fly and then painting them, thinking up words to put on the covers, then die cutting them etc.  If you want a less organic approach, sketch out a plan for your notebook covers, assemble all your elements in advance, and then glue them down and gesso them all at the same time.  But as I started off with the intention of making Christmas cards, I did not have a plan in place for notebooks but was still able to make it work!

I hope you enjoyed this project and that it has given you some gift ideas for reasonably quick and customisable gifts that can be used all year round, but are perfect now for Christmas gifts that can be tailored to the recipient.

Till next time,

Elle xx


PROJECT RECIPE:

GSL Cuts:
Garden Fairies Medium YB4,
Mushroom Shapes D102B,
Pen and Ink Set D72D

Other supplies:
A5 clothbound notebooks
Black gesso
Finnabair Metallique Paints, Liquid Acrylics, Wax
Glue
From Stash: cereal box cardboard