Shaker Sewing Cover Cutout Mini Album

 Hi Everyone, 

Today I have this cute little sewing album to share with you and to make it a little more interesting I thought I would give it a shaker cover!

The chipboard album I will be using for this is called Cutout Cover Mini Album Sewing D100F.  Give all the pages a good wipe with a damp cloth to remove the residue left from cutting then give the front cover a coat of gesso. To make the shaker window I am also using a piece of recycled plastic, but you can also use acetate.

As my album is sewing-inspired, I am also using these sewing stamps and paper from Stamperia.

I'm making this album in the same way as I made this little heart book, so you can find more instructions in that post.

Now comes the fun part!  Choose the papers you want to use inside your album and collage them onto the pages using matte gel medium.

Give the cover a coat of lovely cream coloured paint.  I used Fresco Chalk Paint from Paperartsy but you can use any kind of acrylic paint you like.

In addition to using the sewing stamps inside the album, I also used  them to stamp on top of the sewing shapes on the front cover.

Then using a black paint pen, I embellished some of the sewing shapes and coloured others, like the scissors, black.

I selected some small buttons from my stash to go inside the shaker, and I covered the panel with paper that looks like burlap so that would be a nice background showing through the shaker window.

To assemble the shaker window, you can follow the instructions on this Halloween card post from last year as it was done the same way.  Once everything was in place, the final step was to secure the spine with some linen tape.

Here's another look at the finished Sewing Album...

And if you are curious about the inside pages, here's a quick flip-through. I ended up using several different sewing-related papers collaged onto the pages, and then added some black stamping on top of that.  The mini tags and pockets were fussy cut from the same paper packs.  The finishing touch was to add some real lace to all of the pages in various places.

I hope you enjoyed this little sewing-inspired project.  Please let me know in the comments and have a lovely day.

Elle
Empire of the Cat

Project Recipe:
Cutout Cover Mini Album Sewing D100F
white gesso
sewing stamp set and scrapbook papers - Stamperia
matte gel medium

cream acrylic - Paperartsy
black paint pen
black archival ink pad
double-sided foam tape
masking tape
linen tape
buttons and lace
acetate or recycled plastic

Heart Shaped Box Shaker Valentine Card

Hi everyone,

It's Elle again from Empire of the Cat, and this time I have a Valentine's Day card to share with you using some really cool chipboard pieces. Here's the finished card: 

 My card today was going to be an easel style card with a shaker on the front, but as you can see, I made some changes. However it uses the same dimensions, which are - one piece of cardstock measuring 11 inches x 5.5 inches wide. I score this card at 5.5 inches and then at 2.75 inches and then fold and crease so they are nice and flat.

 Step one is to prepare the card base, and this time I am using this tissue paper to cover one side of the card and adhering it with Matte Medium using a paintbrush.

Once the card is covered, leave it to dry and start work on the chipboard pieces.

 Remember to give the chippies a wipe down, before painted them with white gesso.

 Now that my card base is dry, I gave it a coat of clear gesso to protect it during the next stages, and left it to dry.

 Meanwhile, I am using the little niche as my shaker box, so I cut a rectangle of acetate from some old packaging to fit on top, making sure that it is big enough to cover the flaps on the side so it can be glued down.  The arrow above is pointing to the acetate as it's a little hard to see :)

 I pulled out an assortment of sequins and beads that I thought might look nice but I had no red sequins, however I did have these silver heart shaped sequins...

 So I decided to quickly paint some of them red using alcohol ink! This took no time at all and the alcohol ink dries very fast, so I would encourage you to try this trick if you find you don't have a colour you want.

 Back to the heart frame for my shaker, and I decided to use some embossing powder on it - I'm using embossing powder on all the chippies actually - and this one is a nice pinky purple glitter EP. 

 Then I heat embossed the LOVE word and the heart with a red glitter EP.

 Pink and red and purple - of course they all go together!

 Here are all the pieces heat embossed and ready to go!

 I glued the little niche box together and put some white card at the back as I thought this would be a good contrast and would show off the sequins better. As you will see later, I changed my mind about this, but that's allowed :) I put something heavy on it to hold it in place while the glued dried.

 Here is the shaker heart niche all glued down but it looks quite bare.

 It looks much better with the red heart in the middle, don't you think? OK so let's leave that alone for a minute and get back to working on the card base.

 I added some magenta and violet liquid acrylic paints, and metallic plum acrylic to the card and sprayed it with water to make it all streaky, and then dried it with a heat tool. Then I added some gold metallic, violet acrylic and white paint splatters and left it to dry.

 Using some Finnabair Icing Paste in gold, I added some gold highlights to the LOVE word, the red heart and around the edges of the heart frame.

Here's another close up on the icing paste.

 Once the paint was dry on the card base, I used some Black Archival ink to do some random stamping using this "Soulmate" stamp, and then edged the card with the same gold Icing Paste as before.

 And here's where I changed my mind about the easel card! I turned it sideways and it became a trifold card instead! It's funny how these things work out. All the way though I was planning an easel card that would be propped open and standing upright, but then when it came to assembly, I turned it sideways and positioned the LOVE word on the diagonal, and decided I liked it better that way. So now the heart frame niche shaker box would still be adhered to the front, just turned 90 degrees from my original plan!

 Closed position

 Open position - as you can see the shaker looks good with the white background showing through, however, as soon as the card is standing up and all the shaker goodness falls to the bottom, I thought it looked a bit bare with just the white background.

 This is really not a big deal but it bothered me, so I decided to open it back up and slide in a piece of patterned paper to match the rest of the card.

 When it is flat, there really isn't much of a difference but when it is upright...

 It makes me happier and I think it completes the look.

 I hope you will try making a little shaker card using this lovely little heart niche. I'd love to see what you create.

 Till next time,

 Elle
Empire of the Cat


PROJECT RECIPE:
GSL Cuts - Little Heart Niche D64B Layered Love Title D22W
Finnabair - Tissue Paper, Soulmate stamp, Violet and Magenta Liquid Acrylics, Metallic Plum Acrylic, Unicorn Hair Acrylic, gold Icing Paste, White Gesso, Transparent Gesso
Wow - embossing ink, Royal Crush EP, Red Glitz EP,
Decoart - Matte Medium
Tim Holtz - alcohol ink - poppyfield
Archival Ink - Black
Neenah White Cardstock 110lb
Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive
From Stash: acetate from cake box, sequins, beads

Haunted House Halloween Shaker Card

Hi there Crafty Friends!

I'm back today with a colourful Halloween card for you using these fab chipboard pieces, embossing powder and Distress Oxides.

Let's Get Started!

Here are the chipboard pieces you will need - Haunted House Oval and Halloween Word Set.

I chose to use the "Haunted" word to go with my haunted house but "wicked" and "frightful" would also fit on a 5.5 inch wide card front.

Making a cool background using Distress Oxide sprays is really easy and this technique gives you two backgrounds for the price of one!

Cut two pieces of identically sized cardstock, then spray one of them with Distress Oxide Sprays of your choice - I used Mustard Seed, Abandoned Coral and Seedless Preserves - and a quick spritz or two of water.  Then press the second piece of cardstock on top of the other, and smooth them out with your fingers, before peeling them apart.  You should have two similar backgrounds but they will not be exactly the same!  Choose your favourite of the two, and carry on.

At this point I wanted to chose the cardstock for my card base, and I went with this Plum Punch cardstock from Gina K which looks nice against the Seedless Preserves.  I'm making quite a large card here, which takes one full piece of cardstock folded in half to make a 5.5 x 8.5 inch card. What can I say - I like big cards and I cannot lie!  I cut my Oxide background down to 5.25 x 8.25 inches, just enough to leave a small border around the outside.

Next, as we are making a shaker card, cut a piece of acetate to fit behind the Haunted House chippie.  You can use a circle die for this or you can just draw around the Haunted House shape and cut it out with scissors.  This is an oval shape not a circle, so it's just as easy to do it by hand with scissors than use a circle die and then have to cut it to an oval anyway.  But I like options so I'm giving you two :)

At this point, I gathered all my pieces together ready for heat embossing.  I also added some Tim Holtz die cut bats but they missed out on the above photo opportunity.  I used this shiny but not too shiny Black Glint embossing powder by Wow on the house and bats, and this chunky Rocky Road embossing powder by Emerald Creek on the Haunted word chippie.

Time to make the shaker!  Carefully glue the House chippie to the acetate around the oval shape and several places on the house shape, the moon, the bat, the little trees etc, making sure not to overdo the glue as you don't want it showing on the front!

Then take some foam tape and use it to edge around the entire oval shape making sure not to leave any spaces where your shaker materials could escape!  I am using black foam tape here so that it blends in better but you could use white and just paint the edges before you stick it on the card.  My tape is 0.5 inch wide so I cut it in thin strips the same thickness as the oval shape and then added thicker parts at the bottom where the house is.  I used two layers of foam tape one on top of the other, as it can be helpful to give whatever you put inside your shaker, more room to move about.  Also important is to use an anti-static tool on all the foam edges to make sure that the shaker materials don't stick to it or you won't get anything to shake!

Time to assemble the card!  I distressed the edges of both the card base and the background and inked them with Black Soot Archival ink.  Then adhere the Oxide background to the card base.

Decide where on your card you want to place your Haunted House and make sure you have it centred.  I used a T-Ruler and an acrylic block to mark where I wanted to put it, and then put the little bundle of sequins and stars in the middle of where the Haunted House would be stuck.  I peeled off the backing tape and lined up the house with the blocks I had placed on the card to ensure it was centred and level, and stuck it down.  It can be helpful just to place something like an acrylic block on top just to hold it down for a few minutes.

Then I adhered the Haunted word chippie and three additional little die cut bats to the card and it was complete!

...Or was it?

There was one more step I wanted to add, and that was some yellow Nuvo drops to the centre of the moon which would otherwise be clear.  It's perfectly fine to leave it clear but I really wanted that yellow moon.  You could also add colour behind the house windows with Nuvo drops or coloured paper (more options!) but I wanted the colour of the Oxides to show through. And now the card was complete!

Hope you enjoyed this Halloween card tutorial!

Till next time,

Elle
Empire Of The Cat



PROJECT RECIPE for Haunted House Halloween Shaker Card:

GSL Cuts Haunted House Oval - Model D12K, Halloween Word Set D81F
Wow Embossing ink, Black Glint embossing powder
Emerald Creek - Rocky Road embossing powder
Heat gun for melting embossing powder
Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive, Nuvo Drops - Dandelion Yellow
Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Sprays - Mustard Seed, Abandoned Coral, Seedless Preserves, Distress Archival in Black Soot,
Tim Holtz Bat Crazy Sizzix dies
Gina K - Plum Punch Cardstock
From Stash:  scrap of acetate, double sided tape, black foam tape, green sequins, silver stars, black stars