Sugar and spice

Today I’ve got the first part of a big project I am doing up, a baby book for a colleague at work who is expecting her first little girl.  This is taking a lot longer than I thought to complete so to motivate me I am going to post up the only bit that is finished so far, the cover.

To make up my baby book I’ve used a Tim Holtz Collection Folio, the large size, and gone to town with the decorating of it.  To do up the front cover I have followed the layout sketch at Feeling Sketchy and got inky and powdery with all sorts of good things.  I started with Tim Holtz Distress Paint in Picket Fence and then sprinkled on some Fran-tage.  On the layout I used modelling paste and a stencil for my butterflies and added some Distress Ink into the modelling paste as well as some more embossing powders over the top.  I also did the same with the textured background that is only just visible under the papers.

With all my various effects on the cover I am also entering this in the current Craft Hoarders Anonymous challenge.  There are copious amounts of flowers all over the cover, as expected for little girl’s book, so I am also entering this in the current challenge at Paper Crafting Journey.

I swapped out the black elastic closure for some pink elastic.  I was going to put a word band or some letter charms on the elastic but the cover is way too busy as it is.  Notice that border, looks pretty good, doesn’t it?  Well it had better for the work that went into it, let’s just say these Collection Folios are made thick and tough and it was also too big to go through my Grand Calibur so I traced and cut round my Sizzix die and then used various sized hole punches for the lacy edge.

Opening up the folio you get two flaps top and bottom and I decorated the outside of these with some chippie words, these I painted up and sprinkled with Fran-tage also.  The large heart buttons have been in my stash for ever as have the tulle flowers, I think they were from Webster’s Pages.

I’ve tried to tie things together with matching elements so I’ve got some of the same Organza Pearl Pink on the inside of these flaps.  The top one is missing the pocket, I have no idea where I’ve put the packet, it’s got to be somewhere in my craft room!  It’s meant to be for the hospital name card from the baby’s crib.  The bottom one is ready to go with a pocket for the baby’s wrist tag.

There’s also a flap on the right side and I’ve used the same Organza Pearl Pink on the outside with some buttons from Jesse James.  On the inside I have the same lace as the top and bottom flaps and some chippies and more of the Jesse James buttons and flowers to tie in with the other flaps too.

You’ve got to have space in a baby book for all the vital statistics from the birth and I’ve put that on the inside left cover using a piece of vellum over some lovely shimmering cardstock with some more flowers and another piece of lace.

The back inside cover I’ve done up as the last page looking back over baby’s first year with some journaling cards ready to go.  I’ve tied this in with the flaps using the same lace and roses too.

Stay tuned for the inside pages, hopefully in the next day or two, I need to get this finished before baby arrives!

Ingredients:

Chalks & Powders etc

Fran-tage Embossing Enamel ~ Aged Ochre, Aged Scarlett, Aged Silver, Shabby Pink & Shabby White

Lindy’s Stamp Gang Embossing Powder ~ Starburst Candy Rose

Pebbles Chalk ~ Pink

Pink Mica

Dies, SVGs & Templates etc

Forgotten Scraps ~ Party Banner

Magenta Stencils ~ Nature Elements

Memory Box Stencil ~ Texture Mesh

Sizzix Thinlits ~ Scallop Border

Embellishments

BoBunny Jewels ~ Frosting (coloured with RV34 Various Inks)

Dusty Attic ~ Safety Pins

Kaisercraft Paper Blooms ~ Dusty Pink

I Am Roses ~ Mulberry Paper Roses Variegated Pink and Pink

Jesse James Dress It Up Buttons ~ Baby Girl

Kaisercraft Pearl Strip ~ Pink Champagne

Kaisercraft Sparklets ~ Hearts

Metal Charms from stash ~ Hearts & Umbrellas

Petaloo Darjeeling ~ Wild Mini Blossoms Pink

Scrap FX Chipboard ~ Hospital Name Band & Mini Pins

Tulle Flowers

WOW Chipboard ~ As Cute As A Button & Precious

Inks & Paints etc

Lindy’s Stamp Gang Starburst ~ Cheshire Cat Cherry

Liquid Pearls ~ Copper Pearl

Teresa Collins Basically Essential ~ Modelling Paste

Tim Holtz Distress Ink ~ Shaded Lilac, Tea Dye & Worn Lipstick

Tim Holtz Distress Paint ~ Picket Fence

Twinkling H2O ~ Just Peachy

Papers

Authentique Classique Pretty ~ Life Cards

Carta Bella Baby Mine ~ Baby Floral, Baby Girl Dots

Pion Design Fairytale of Spring ~ Hope

Pion Design Sweet Baby ~ Pink Baby Blanket

Ribbons & Trims etc

Green Tara Trim ~ Organza Pearl Pink

Live & Love Crafts Lace ~ Adélaïde, Pearl Lace with Beads & Pastello Pink

Challenges

Craft Hoarders Anonymous #10 ~ Spray It! Ink It! Paint It! Smear It! Emboss It!

Feeling Sketchy ~ Layout Sketch #92

Paper Crafting Journey ~ Flower Power!

Thanks for stopping by!

…do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you…

It’s challenge time at Simply Steampunk Challenges and our theme this month is tragic love and, with this gorgeous image from Abigail Larson, Hades and Persephone 1, how could I go with any theme but Wuthering Heights.

And here's a close-up showing the beautiful image with more true to life colours.

I googled the English moors and turns out there are trees on them so I have some skeleton trees in the background to help with the ghostly and tragic mood.  I wanted to make Persephone / Cathy look like a ghost to have this resemble a dream of Heathcliff on the moors and thought to use Frosted Film for it but the stuff doesn’t work like I thought it would so no ghosts.

I did stupidly decide to go with a decoupaged scene, stupidly because this is an incredibly detailed image.  It is beautiful when coloured and done once as a 2D picture it would have been an easy colour on the train but as it is it took hours of colouring and fussy cutting and gluing.  That said, I love how this turned out.

The hours of work weren’t just in the decoupage, I also spent a lot of time on decorating the box.  I wasn’t happy with the first coat of gilding on the lace, it was too bright gold so a few more layers of colour and I was finally happy with my vintage / grungy look.  The colour doesn’t look good on the photo, it is actually a dark browny gold colour, I really need to invest in a good camera!

As this is most definitely not a card I’m entering it in the anything but a card challenge at All Craft’s Challenges.  The beautiful moment captured in the image speaks to me of love, that elemental love of Hades and Persephone or Cathy and Heathcliff so I’m entering my card in the Cheerful Stamp Pad’s Love / Valentine challenge.  And as I have an SVG cut, several skeleton trees in fact, I am also linking this at the current love challenge at Creative Cutting Challenge.

Now head on over to Simply Steampunk Challenges and check out what my awesome teamies have created using Simply B Stamps’ images and theme tragic love.  Hopefully you’ll be inspired to get steamy and create a project, remember you don’t need to use a Simply B Stamp, although we do love to see them, but you do need to create a Steampunk style project.

Ingredients:

Copics

Skin E11, E21, E50, E51, E53 (E02, E13 cheeks)

Lips E11, R46

Hair E23, E25, E27, E29, E49, T4, T6, T8, T10, 100

Persephone’s Dress BV20, BV23, BV25, BV29

Hades’ Outfit W00, W1, W3, W5, W7

Moon BV31, BV34, 0

Rocks W3, W5, W7, 0

Chalks & Powders etc

Fran-tage Embossing Enamel – Aged Ochre

Dies, SVGs & Templates etc

The Crafter’s Workshop 6x6 Template – Mini Branches

Silhouette SVG – Skeleton Tree

Embellishments

Kaisercraft Mini Paper Blooms – Aubergine

Kaisercraft Paper Blooms – Aubergine

Prima Junkyard Findings – Heart Gears

Words or Whatever Chipboard – Cog & Gear Corner Flourish (small & large)

Inks & Paints etc

Lindy’s Stamp Gang Flat Fabio – Tweedle Dee Denim

Lindy’s Stamp Gang Starburst – Cocoa Bean Copper & Midnight Raven Rendezvous

Rub’nBuff – Spanish Copper

StazOn – Black

Tim Holtz Distress Ink – Faded Jeans, Vintage Photo & Walnut Stain

Tim Holtz Distress Paint – Vintage Photo

Viva Décor Inka Gold – Graphite, Lava Red & Old Gold

Papers

American Crafts Cardstock – Kraft

BoBunny Woodland Winter – Frosty Morning

Ribbons & Trims etc

Lace from LSS

Stamps

Simply B Stamps – Hades and Persephone 1

Challenges

All Crafts Challenges February / March – Anything but a card

The Cheerful Stamp Pad #79 – “Love / Valentine”

Creative Cutting Challenge #27 – Love

Thanks for stopping by!