all are welcome

Lately there seems to be unrest in so many aspects of life,
I felt the need to create a piece dedicated to unity.
This accordion book is made with a few different pieces from Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts.

When I begin gathering pieces to create the accordion,
I envision many different types of neighborhoods and buildings.
I choose the house oddities box for its variety of building shapes that will become the "pages."
As my ideas for the finished piece become clearer, I decide on having the central panel unfold in the shape of a heart. The GSLC book of love mini album covers are perfect for this use.
I arrange all the pieces in a horizontal line to determine the final arrangement. Two of the accordion "pages" will comprised of multiple shapes overlaid and glued together.

The house oddities box contains a door panel, this becomes the cover of the accordion. I cut two pieces of scrap chipboard the exact same size as the door panel. One of these will become the back cover of the album, while the other will give reinforcement to the front door cover piece. I use inks and paints to color a piece of woodgrain cardstock creating the look of stained wood. When this is dry, I remove the inner panels from the GSLC door and the adhere the "wood" to the door panel with collage medium. I weight it down while drying to ensure that the panel remains flat.

Using an Exacto knife, I carefully cut out the open inner panel sections.
The raised panels of the door are created by adhering the remaining "wood" pieces to only the innermost rectangles from the door panel. When everything is put back into place, the panel "frames" painted with brown acrylic, appear to be recessed from the wood grained raised pieces.

 The back sides of all the pages will covered with patterned paper. Once I select a pattern appropriate for my theme, I trace all of the pages onto the paper, cut them out and label them. This makes it easier to distinguish which pieces go where during the final assembly.  Before adding any of the finishes, I paint the edges of all the interior pages with black paint, this creates a finished look when the accordion is complete.

Each of the building "pages" inside the accordion contain a different wall finish. I decide on wood siding, brick, stone, and stucco, then determine which building shape suits each finish best. 

To create the look of wood siding, I once again use woodgrain paper. Colored with various inks to highlight the woodgrain pattern, the paper is cut into strips which are attached to the house form in an overlapping pattern, mimicking siding.

The brick wall is created from a brick patterned die cut. Glue is added only to the back of the brick pieces of the die cut; when the die cut is placed upon the building shape, I rub lightly over the pattern allowing the bricks to adhere to the chipboard. The remaining paper is lifted off leaving the recessed mortar lines. These bricks are colored with inks and then coated with collage medium. The mortar lines are painted in with a fine paintbrush and acrylic paint.

The stone wall is created with texture paste through a stencil onto the chipboard building shape. When the texture paste has dried completely, the stones and mortar lines are painted in varying shades of gray to look like real stone.

The stucco finish building wall is created by covering the shape with grit paste.

When the paste is dry, acrylic paint is sponged on. Once the paint is dry, the surface is randomly inked with shades of brown ink to give the stucco a weathered and aged feel.

I work on the central heart panel next. Using a linen hinging tape, I secure the two covers from the book of love heart mini album together, aligning the pieces and allowing for the fold. I paint the front side of the heart with two layers of acrylic paint allowing to dry between coats. Knowing I want the heart to look like it has been graffitied, I use a font generator to select the desired style. I print the words "WE ARE ONE" and trace the outlines onto the painted heart. Then I paint in the letters and outline them. I ink the painted heart with black ink to created an aged look. Once complete, the heart is covered with one step crackle. This is set aside. A few hours later, I rub a dark glaze into the cracks and re-ink the edges.

Each of the pages contains various combinations of paper dolls, representing the many people in our world. I color the paper dolls with Copic markers, Distress crayons and ink. The paper dolls are attached to each page with collage medium and weighted down to dry.

The insides of the front and back covers are painted with brown acrylic paint.
A patterned paper of many different portraits is cut to fit each of the inside covers and attached with collage medium. This is then coated with one step crackle and when dry an antiquing glaze is rubbed into the cracks and allowed to dry.

With all of the page fronts complete, I attach the papers to the back sides of the pages and ink around the edges with black ink. Now it is time to assemble the accordion.

We are all tied together by a common thread, this is a loose and fragile connection. I decide to connect my pages with simple burlap string tied through eyelets. I align all the pages along the bottom and attach the eyelets. [Note: the eyelets would be easier to attach before adding the paper dolls.] When all the eyelets are in place, I tie the respective holes together creating the accordion.
Lastly, I add some small talk quote stickers to the interior pages to create a message:
replace fear of the unknown with curiosity
find joy
have hope
we are one
cultivate kindness
together is the best place to be
learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow

I understand that there is always knowledge to be gained and room to grow to further our understanding of the world and people around us.
I believe that we are all one;
we all deserve the patience and understanding that is required to live in peace with one another.
If there were no differences among us, what an unfulfilled life we would live.
Thank you for stopping by the blog, I truly appreciate it.
 Wishing you peace in these trying times.
~Ann

Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts used:
book of love heart mini album
house oddities box

The house that snark built

This is the house that snark built.  

It's a bittersweet day for me today.  After three years with the Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts team today will be my last post.  I have loved every second I have been on the team and promise I won't be gone forever.  So, for this post I decided to go out the way I came in- full of snark.  

This project was made with the House Oddities box.  This kit includes the box and all the little houses inside.  It's pretty amazing.  

I started with two sheets of watercolor paper and used Distress Oxide Sprays to color them.  The first sheet has Broken China, Wilted Violet, Pumice Stone, and Cracked Pistachio Oxides.  After the initial layer of Oxides I added some PaperArtsy Infusions in Rocky Road. I areas that were still exposed got hit with Distress Ink in the corresponding colors.  

The second sheet was made using Picked Raspberry, Peacock Feathers, and Squeezed Lemonade Oxide Sprays.  I added Infusions in Violeta and filled in the blanks with Distress Ink.

The houses are hinged together using plain white sports tape.  I cut a small piece and put it on the front of the house.  A second piece went on the back so there was no stick exposed tape.  I knew I wasn't going to make the pages too thick with embellishments.  If you want to recreate this house and know you will have chunky pages just make the hinges longer.  The hinges are painted with colors that correspond to the pages.  

I cut the watercolor paper to fit each house and then stamped up the backgrounds.  I used several of Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous sets (CMS364, CMS341, CMS328,CMS302, CMS294,CMS261, CMS187, CMS172,CMS083, and CMS081) for this.  Some of the backgrounds were stamped using Archival ink in Hydrangea and the rest were stamped using Staz-on Pigment inks.  

Part of the stamping was done before the embellishments were added.  After the paperdolls, sentiments, and other bits were glued down I added a bit more stamping. 

Once all the stamping was done I went back in with various gel pens to add doodles and scribbles.  

So this is what the front row of houses looks like all stretched out.  

You can see I added bits to some of the pages.  The little crown, chain, party hats, and coin add just a bit of bulk but I took that into account when making the hinges. 

 Here are the back pages of the house. 

 Now these could be the front.  It just depends on how you fold them up. 

 I had so much fun picking out the paperdolls and the snarky sentiments for each. 

The exterior is quite simple to put together. 

I painted the exterior black and the interior with Dina Wakley's Lime.  Once it was all dry I used Beacon 3 in 1 glue to stick it all together.  Don't glue the front to the box or you won't be able to get inside! I gave the exterior a spritz of gold ink spray just so it wasn't flat black.

 The interior was splattered with the same color paints I used to color the hinges in the book. You can see the little houses all fit right inside the box.  

You can hinge the door to the houses, so when you pull the door open all the houses come right out.  I decided to do mine a bit differently and I actually used Tim Holtz hinges to hinge the door to the box.  The door panels were covered using the same background paper that covers the houses inside. 

Here you can see the top of the box was stuck to the door using a layer of foam tape.  The door is hinged to the side of the box using the metal hinges.  I used an awl and then was able to use brads to attach the hinges.  Please pardon my hand in here, the wooden base I use to take my photos is a bit warped so sometimes projects want to fall over.  

The final touches were added by spraying the finials with Oxide sprays in Peacock Feathers and Cracked Pistachio.  They got splattered with the paint too.  The baseboard doll was edged with gold(and the entire backside is painted gold too).  He got his snarky sentiment and was glued to the box using super glue.  

I hope you enjoyed my project today.  I had so much fun making it! 

Happy Crafting,

Jess

A Stroll Down Sweet Street

Yep, the holidays are over, winter has us all in her cold clutches. What better way to warm up than make some snuggly cute houses for Valentine's Day? Lora here playing with the House Oddities Box and having a grand time! I love this kit! I love anything house shaped and the possibilities with this awesome kit are pretty much endless.
I decided to take a stroll down Sweet Street,  a charming little block of confectionery delights.

It was lots of fun using pink papers and lots of glitter! And, of course, chocolate was eaten throughout the project. For inspiration. Just sayin'.

 

The papers kind of remind me of the Licorice Allsorts I got when I was in college in the UK.
I wasn't over fond of licorice, but the sweets were so colorful and pretty, they always looked like they should taste like something else.

A couple of detail shots.....

I started this project by gluing the box together and giving it a coat of gesso. I usually like to do this for two reasons. The main one is that matte medium loves to stick to gesso, so it's very easy to glue papers down. The second is that there is sometimes what I call 'burn residue' on die-cuts and this keeps your hands from getting ashy and transferring it to your papers when you're gluing them down.

I pre-cut all the papers I wanted to use for each house, back and front. Next I used linen hinging tape to connect all my little houses together.

I made sure to leave plenty of space between the houses to account for the bulk of papers and ephemera I wanted to add. If you tape the pieces too close together, the houses won't fold up properly.
Keep the bottoms of your houses straight and even so nothing is lopsided.

I glued all the papers on the houses and trimmed them where needed. I then inked the edges and the linen tape so it would blend in a bit with the whole ensemble.

I collected a bunch of fun little doodads and bits and composed little house layouts. I usually don't plan this part, as it's more fun to just be spontaneous and I'm not locked into  a fixed idea, so fun things start happening and my project starts to get a personality.
I made a little flap with a message underneath by cutting out a pretty shape from scrapbook paper and once again, using lined hinging tape.....

I laid the tape over the house and measured out (roughly...it's not brain surgery) the width and length I needed and stuck it down.

Now it's ready for embellishing and a cute little message.

Supplies List:
House Oddities Box
Window 6 Panel
Steampunk Shape Set (wings)
Stackable Labels Shape Set

Additional Supplies
Bo Bunny Sweet Moments 6x6 and 12x12 Scrapbook Papers
Stickles-Diamond
Linen Hinging Tape
Paper Roses
Collage images from Sandy Gordon (Art, Tea, Life)
White acrylic paint marker
Gesso
Matte Medium (I like Liquitex)

Thank you so much for stopping by!

Christmas Oddities Box by Gloria

Hello, it is Gloria with you and I have a Christmas home decor item to share today.

I used the House Oddities Box to create a table-top (or mantle-top) decor piece that is also a storage box! The box measures 6 1/2" x 3 1/2" x 3 1/2" and comes with a chipboard door and seven (7) chipboard house shapes. (I am using the houses for another project.)

The box is the perfect size to store a candle, some gift tags, or even one of those creepy Elf on a Shelf dolls! I decorated with a gold, black, and red scheme, with lots of sparkle and bells!

Let's get started!

Wipe down all the box pieces to remove the soot from the cutting process. Glue decorative paper to the inside surfaces of all the pieces, including the inside of the lid.

Assemble the box. I reinforced all seams with washi tape. This also helps to hold the box together while the glue sets.

Attach the lid to the box. I used washi tape to create a flexible hinge for my lid.

Mark where you wish your door handle to go and drill holes through the lid and the decorative door piece. I used an anywhere hole punch to create my door knob holes.

Cover the outside surfaces of the box with decorative paper. I adhere my paper with a matte gel medium, using a foam brush.

Use various inks (or paints) to color your chipboard accent pieces. To color the door, I sponged on various red pigment inks, allowing them to dry between coats.

I used white ink to color a bird cage from the Ornamental Birdcages Shape Set. While the ink was wet I heat embossed the birdcage with shabby embossing enamel. I repeated the process, using white ink and white embossing powder on snowflakes from the Snowflake Shape Set and the Winter Shape Set.

I selected "two turtle doves" from the Birds Shape Set and colored them with gold pigment ink.

Glue the door to the box lid. Add a decorative knob.

Create a "wreath" for the door. Start with the ornamental birdcage. Glue a chipboard or other decorative sentiment to the right side of the birdcage. Layer snowflakes and a large flower. I added a jingle bell to the center of one of the snowflakes. Add the birds in the next layer, using foam tape or scrap chipboard to lift them off the base. Glue metal bells and a loopy bow to the top of the birdcage.

Glue the decoration to the door, making sure to avoid the area around the knob. Add more decorative elements, as desired. I added more velvet leaves, a pine cone, and a few Christmas do dads.

Wrap gold ribbon around the top and sides of the box, securing on the bottom. Create a large bow from the gold ribbon and glue the bow to the top of the box.

Add Christmas sprays and do dads, as desired. I poked through my stash of Christmas odds and ends to create my box topper. I wanted to stay in the gold and red theme. Everything is attached with hot glue.

If you want to use the box for storage, make sure you do not accidentally glue the door shut! Use black ink to cover any raw chipboard edges. I wrapped the sides of my "door frame" with the gold washi tape. (I wish I had inked it with the black ink instead.)

Thanks for looking!

~ Gloria Stengel: Scraps of Life

Supplies Used:

Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts:
House Oddities Box
Ornamental Birdcages Shape Set
Snowflake Shape Set
Winter Shape Set
Birds Shape Set

Partner products:
Graphic 45 papers: St. Nicholas 12x12 pad
Graphic 45 chipboard: St. Nicholas Decorative Chipboard
Graphic 45 washi tape set

Other: shabby embossing enamel, white embossing powder, pigment ink (white merlot, cranberry, gold), black dye ink, gold ribbon, twine (red, sparkle, gold), craft bells, various Christmas floral elements, metal door knob, matte gel medium, wet glue, hot glue