You can do a lot with a little

Please welcome our newest Design Team member Myry. Myry is from Spain and loves crafting. We hope you like her work as much as we do.

Hello everyone! 

Myry here and I'm pleased to partner with Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts!

Sometimes we think that to embellished our works we need a lot of different elements. But that's not true! 

So Today I want to teach you how to take advantage of few elements to create a cover for an album.

The first thing we're going to need are chipboards. I'm going to use "Family" from Fall word set and some pieces from Leafy Swirls and Buds.

Let me give you a tip: sometimes chipboards have traces of something like charcoal. You need pay attention to the edges. If they're dirty clean them with a rag. This way you'll avoid dirtying your work.

Now we're going to use embossing powders to color the chipboards. Use a color that you're already using in your work. In my case, I'm using a pink and violet palette so I'm going to use this light pink powder.

Another tip: use just a little bit powder for a cracked and aged effect. 

This was after two attempts.

Next we'll position the title over between the edges of the heart using a piece of acetate a little longer than the title.

The important thing is to know if our glue fix the acetate or dry as a layer of glass (therefore the acetate will slip).

Try to glue only the parts of the chipboard that will make contact with the acetate.

And now we're going to start putting the rest of the elements in place: the other chipboards, some diecuts and small elements like beads and dots.

One tip more: use the excess of the chipboards to give volume and make layers.

And that was it! So simple and easy :)

I hope this short tutorial help you in your future works. 

Have a good week!

Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts items used:

Fall Word Set

Leafy Swirls and Buds

Other items used:

Zing "Pink" embossing powder

Distress embossing ink

Heat embossing tool

Cutter, glue and rag

Acetate

Diecuts, beads and dots

Staying Home 2020 Tag Book

Hello everyone,

I don't know about you but I've been doing even more recycling than usual over the last few months.  I have been setting myself a challenge to use as much as possible to avoid sending it all to the recycling centre, or having it pile up in the house, since the recycling centre was actually closed for a few months, but has now reopened with restrictions.  So this project is all about using some recycled elements and to make a record of life during lockdown.

Today I will be using elements from these two COVID-19 art sets to make a mini tag book.

And I will also be using some toilet paper tubes!

And part of this cereal box.

The first step is to flatten the toilet roll tubes using a bone folder.

To make the hinge that will hold the TP pages together, cut a piece of cardboard from the cereal box that is just a tiny bit shorter than the tube, so that it will be able to slide inside the tube.  The hinge I am making is an old technique which, from memory, I think is called stack the deck.  I can't really give any measurements because they are all based on the size of your toilet roll tubes and every brand is different.  My tube when flattened measures approximately 4 x 3 inches, but yours might be different so make sure to measure everything before cutting.

Pieces to cut:  

- Three pieces for the hinge, each one wider than the previous one as these will sit inside each other and "stack". The middle of the small one should be 1/4 inch, the middle one should be 3/4 inch and the larger one should be 1 3/4 inch.  Then allow 1/2 - 3/4 inch on either side of that for the flaps.

- One piece for the cover.  The size is up to you, depending on how you want your tag book to look.  I made my covers 4.5 inches square so I have a lot of space around my tube, top, bottom and sides, but you could make yours the same size as the tube if you like - just remember to account for the tags that will be sticking out of the tubes!

Making the cover

I covered both sides of my cover with black gesso.

Then I used a combination of brown metallic acrylic and brown fluid acrylic to paint around the edges of the outside of the cover.  This is because I plan to add my papers to the middle only as I wanted a border around the outside, but you could cut your paper to the same size as the cover and cover the whole thing.

Paper selection.  I decided to use the Tim Holtz Abandoned paper stash from my collection. I chose three papers for the tubes and one paper for the outside and inside covers.  

This is an 8 inch paper, so I cut my covers into 4 x 4 inch squares, so I could get both inside and outside covers from one piece of paper.  I like to round the corners to make it neater and to stop them getting dog-eared.

Cut the papers to cover the tubes.  I cut them as one long piece so I could wrap it around both sides and fold it over the other side.

When they are all covered they look like this:

Now it's time to slide all the tubes on to the hinge.  This hinge has space for six tubes, but you can always make it larger and add more tubes.

A funny thing happened when it came time to glue the papers to the outside and inside covers.  I turned them over and decided I liked the reverse side better!  The colours really stand out against the brown acrylic so I decided to keep them that way up.  Edge all the papers with Archival ink to hide the white cut edges and then glue them in place.

Once all the papers are glued on to the covers, glue the hinge onto the spine.

Decoration time!

Choose your elements and cover them with white gesso.

Once the gesso is dry paint them with the color of your choice.  I painted mine this bright lime green using Paperartsy Limelight chalk paint.  As this is a tag book, I also cut some tags to fit inside my tubes and printed out some photos I took during lockdown - mostly shopping trips, queuing, social distancing, empty shelves etc.   I printed them on watercolour paper and then distressed the edges with my scissors.

For my cover I chose the Staying Home 2020 elements.

For the inside cover I used the lockdown and virus elements, and below is how it looks with the tag and photo included.

On another page I used the Wash your hands and hand sanitiser elements, and you can see another one of the tags and photos.

Here's another one of the tags and photos, this time showing the empty shelves in the supermarket.

Here's a look at the inside back cover which uses the COVID-19 element.

I used the biological hazard element on the spine of the book.

As a final touch I outlined all the letters on the cover using an Stabilo pencil, you can see the different it makes between the 20 on the left and the 20 on the right which has been outlined.

Finished Book

And that's the finished tag book!  

This could be used to record messages, journal entries, photos or just your thoughts of this time. I have added my photos to the tags but I still have some "empty" pages, so I could also add some photos or journaling on them.

Hope you enjoyed this eco-friendly, recycling tutorial.  Let me know in the comments!

Bye for now,

Elle

Empire of the Cat

Project Recipe

GSL:  Covid-19 art
toilet paper tubes
cereal box
gesso - white, black
Paperartsy Fresco Chalk paint
metallic paint
fluid acrylic paint
Tim Holtz Abandoned paper stash
Archival ink
Adhesive
Corner rounder or corner punch (optional)
Tags to fit inside tubes (or make your own)
Photos to fit on tags or tubes
Bone folder to flatten tubes (optional)

faerie hollow

Recently, my morning walks have left little doubt about the arrival of fall. Sightings of acorns and numerous pinecones littered across the path, falling leaves of varying colors, and the crisp air have me thinking about the creatures and faeries settling in for the coming winter. It inspired me to create something a little whimsical. Today I am sharing faerie hollow, a little place to store some of my natural treasures found during my walks.

I begin with a Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts ATC sized faux book box. This box arrives flat, in 7 pieces. Whenever I create a three dimensional piece, I like to first put the pieces together without glue. This gives me an idea of what will go where, as well as a visual from which I can begin to imagine ways that I would like to decorate the piece. Once I have completed my "pre-assembly" I select a patterned paper that will be attached to the interior of the book.

I use the chipboard pieces as a template then cut the paper to the appropriate size. During this process, I always like to cut all my papers first. Then, once all of the cutting is complete, I adhere them. To keep track of which piece goes where, I label the back sides of the paper pieces with a letter or number and write that same letter/number on the corresponding chipboard. All of the writing ends up being covered when the papers are attached, it simply makes everything much easier when you are at the gluing stage. [Note: the insides of the box pieces will need to be sized to fit within the tabs, while the coverings for the outside edges of the box will need to extend to cover the interlocking tabs.] All of the edges of my cut papers are inked with gathered twigs distress ink. 

With all of the papers cut to size, the next step is to add paint to the chipboard. I paint all the edges of the chipboard pieces with brown paint. This piece is made of heavyweight chipboard so it doesn't warp when you add a thin coat of paint. I already know that I will be covering the book box with papers , so I do not bother to cover the entire pieces with paint, only the edges where my papers will end. The paint will give all the edges a more finished look.

When assembling the faux book box, I use a linen hinging tape along the spine where it attaches to the covers, this allows the "book" to open and close freely, without the worry of paper ripping or wearing out over time. If you don't have any hinging/binding tape, a piece of medical tape will also do the trick. Allow a gap between the spine and each cover. I cover the inside (gap) exposed portion of hinging tape with a piece of thin washi tape. This serves two purposes: covering any sticky portion of tape as well as presenting a clean and coordinating finished gap between the pieces. 

All of the cut papers are attached to the box with collage medium. If necessary, weight down the pieces while they dry to keep them from curling. For my purposes, I adhered the inside paper pieces then secured the box into the back cover piece, before I added the outside box covering (wood grained paper). You can work however you are most comfortable; however, if you would like to cut long strips of paper and wrap the outside corners of your box, it would be best to work like I have described. Be sure to cut out the slots from the base paper that will be attached to the back cover so that the box sides can easily fit into the openings.

When all of the interior papers are in place, I attach a faux wood-grained paper to the outside of the box portion of the book, as well as the back cover and spine. 

The "wood" is created with distress watercolor cardstock and the Sizzix Lumber 3D texture fades embossing folder. Once the grained pattern is embossed, I use a combination of inks, paints and mediums to create an authentic wood appearance. The papers are then cut and attached to the book box with collage medium. 

For the front cover, I cut a piece of Bristol to fit. I stamp some toadstools onto the lower section in archival ink, and color them with distress inks, using a water brush. The garden fairies small are the perfect scale for the stamped mushrooms. The set comes with six different fairies; for this piece, I am only using two of them. The rest will be used on a future piece.

I carefully remove the pieces and cover each one with Versamark embossing ink, then coat with a layer of mirror platinum embossing powder. The powder is heat set, then the fairies are set aside. Once cool, the fairies are attached to the cover paper with collage medium. Using a swirling stars stencil and perfect pearls, I add a bit of magic to the scene, which is completed by stamping the word "believe" in the upper left corner. 

When the book box is opened there is a small die cut mushroom in the corner of the box. I can't wait to begin filling this with small treasures found along my morning walks. 

I hope that you are inspired to create something of your own to keep your found treasures.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, 

I truly appreciate you taking the time. 

~Ann

 xxx 

Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts used:
ATC Sized Faux Book Box
Garden Fairies Small