Altered Book lesson - Image transfers........

Helllloooooooo everyone,

I hope you are all well? I also hope any blogger friends in the U.S. are all OK after that horrific storm, I know some of you are in that area??

Anyhoo, the lovely Elizabeth over at Altered book lover asked us to play with image transfers for one of the last lessons of our amazing course (thank-you soooooo much Elizabeth x).  If you would like to see Elizabeth's incredibly inspiring and comprehensive tutorial please pop on over here.

I had a good play with packing tape and multi-medium transfers but have to admit that this page is not yet finished but I would like to share a couple of finished spreads based on another technique (using gesso as the transfer medium!!) I spotted on Claudine Hellmuth's blog last week, the you-tube demo can be seen here.

The first spread is using what I am now sure was a photocopy as there was no bleeding of ink when I rubbed the paper off!!  I have left the background very plain just using acrylic paint and soluble wax crayons to create a frame........

As you can see, the transfer was very clear!! I decided to tint the faces a little with promarkers and inked the edges of the torn card that I had used to try the technique on but chose to leave the rest well alone!!

The second spread was done with the same technique but I used printed images this time.........

The result wasn't so clear and the ink ran a lot when I was rubbing the paper off the back of the transfer and it got quite messy ha ha ha.  The good thing I suppose was that the gesso base could be 'washed', removing the smudged ink, this resulted in a more faded transfer which I quite like!! Even some of the colour stayed!!
The page was coloured with acrylic paint and acrylic ink (my gorgeous daughter was in hysterics watching me blow the yellow ink around the page with a straw for some reason!!), the edge was stamped with a web I found in my stash and additional images were added from free printable collage sheets I found on the web (really sorry but I can't remember where from exactly).  The transfer images were then collaged on too.

I would also like to share my altered book niche with you all.  I completed this exercise right at the beginning of the course and it is still really a 'work in progress', here goes........

If you would like to see the lesson detailing the 'how' please pop on over here.
I am hoping to make a small handbound journal to fit in the niche before the course has finished.

Finally I would like to share a couple of additional collage spreads I have done in my book.  They have been created using some papermania/docraft papers from my stash and some images from a travel brochure, the blue butterfly and red tags are from a Hot of the Press tag book................

Apologies for the long ish post, I'm trying to play catch up ha ha ha.

Huge hugs blogger friends. Thank-you so much for popping by and leaving a comment if you feel you would like to.

Dawn x

Learn Something New........Final Installment!!

Hellllloooooooo everyone,

hope everyone is fine and dandy??

Lol, the temperature has dropped again but I'm determined not to give in to the heating going on until November.

Anyhoo, I finally remembered that I had scanned these ages ago but forgot to blog them!! Sieve head me!!
The pages are constructed as before in my hand-bound pre-painted page journal using various collage images and stamps from my stash, all finished off with some doodling. I had such fun doing this that I'm missing it now!! I hope to decorate the cover some more when I have the time and will share with you as and when.

The final page was promised to my gorgeous 5 year old daughter as a collaboration, bless her she did me some lovely drawings and cut them out all ready for me to stick in. Ha ha ha, she does more journaling than me and I swear she has about 8 books on the go at the moment!!!!!!!!

Here you go........

Hope you all have a fab weekend. Thank-you so much for popping by and leaving a comment if you feel you would like to.

Huge hugs x x x x

Altered Book - Fabric Lesson........

Evening All,

I hope everyone is well?? Ha ha, I'm still resisting the temptation to put the heating on in the evenings as the temperature now drops dramatically once it goes dark! Stubborn wench that I am I'm determined to hang on as long as possible.

Anyhoo, the lovely Elizabeth (Altered Book Lover) set us a glorious fabric challenge for this lesson. A ton of inspiration and instruction was provided and if you fancy a peek please pop on over HERE.

The first offering is my version of a patchwork quilt, lol minus the stitching and quilting! I used a card base and stuck down squares of scrap fabric, fabric paint was squeezed along the joins to neaten it up a little and some lace was stuck around the edge to finish it off. One of my fave stamps (Octopode Factory's Cheshire Cat) came out again to snuggle under the quilt, and I have to admit to being guilty of cutting his tail off so that he could fit in the hidden pocket, sorry Cheshie.........

My second page started as a scrap of fabric which I stamped on with stazon and a Debbie Moore collage stamp. This definitely needed more work so I edged the image with some copper stickles and spread it out with my fingers to create a frame. This was then matted onto a scrap of green velvet, I stuck a sprinkle of bedazzles down one side using glossy accents (I wasn't trying to cover up the fact that I had stuck the stamped panel on wonky - HONEST, pmsl!!) and stuck a border of bronze sequins around the edge. A piece of lace was also coloured with DI and stuck under the panel for interest.  The background was created using smooshed on acrylic paint and a flourish stamp from my stash........

My final offering is a tribute to my fave shoes which sadly deserted me not long ago i.e. poor old things had been worn so much they just gave up and fell apart!!
Ha ha ha, don't worry, it all went through the washing machine first!!......................

I trimmed and saved what I could and stuck it onto a DI and memento ink background, sadly the laces were beyond saving so I used some fibres instead, looks much better than the originals believe me!!
I tarted it up a bit with some glitter glue to add a little more interest. The shoe (or whats left of it) works brilliantly as a hidden pocket so I did a small tribute tag too........

I have had so much fun with this lesson and I hope it shows, it really stretched me again as I never usually reach for fabric when I'm crafting but it truly does make a fab collage medium and substrate for many papercrafting techniques, thank-you Elizabeth for such a great lesson.  On to the next one now, something else I haven't tried before - Image Transfer - wish me luck.

Many Thanks for popping by and leaving a comment if you feel you would like to.

Huge hugs blogger friends x