Chunky little metal book

A few weeks back I did some metal embossing pieces using flower chipboard pieces underneath and attached them to an ATC sized ecoboard with glue. Yesterday I tried to color them with India ink in turquoise, yellow, fushia and orange. I like the result but I have to admit it took some doing. I did several layers with drying in between with a heat gun. I think I will give it a protective coating with some clear acrylic spray paint. The accordion pages were cut from watercolor paper and painted with some sparkly mica color paint which is hard to capture with my camera. Next time I would like to try my hand at book binding and add a ribbon closure.

 Front cover

 Back cover

 Accordion pages

Spring Thing Challenge at Unruly Arts

Here's my submission for the Unruly PaperArts RAQ challenge theme "Spring Thing". This will be my first online challenge! It will be going into a journal.

Metal embossed ATC

 I did some metal embossing with foil last night and thought it might be cool to turn it into a book cover. Using a flower Bazzil chip board piece I placed a piece metal foil over it and embossed it with embossing tools - first with a cardboard blending stump type tool, then to further define the design, I used a metal embossing tool with a little ball at each end . You want to have something underneath it all that has some give to it. Right now I'm using a mouse pad but I think I may spring for some new mats because I really need my mouse pad for my computer! Next I added a stem and a leaf and the word journal and used the end of my embossing tool to make the dot background. 

On the back side, spackle was used to fill in the poofed out parts to prevent them from collapsing. Color was then added to further reveal the design by using alcohol inks. I think next time I will paint a diluted wash of paint or ink instead of applying ink with a  sponge and then wipe off the excess with a paper towel.  Next I glued the embossed metal and wrapped it around an ATC sized Eco Board. I have to say I really like those Eco boards because they're hard as a rock and can take a lot of abuse while at the same time they're extremely lightweight. I'm wondering if they come in a bigger size. Go check out the metal foil sheets too - they come in different colors and are just the right size to work with for this kind of project, the Eco Boards and embossing tools are at Altered Pages  One more thing, I found that embossing was very similar to doing Zentangles - so relaxing and almost meditative as well. It's also a very portable project. I highly recommend it for an easy and stress free activity all by itself.

She's got mermaids on her mind

I've been having all sorts of fun decorating this little shadowbox with mermaids and their treasures. It started with that mermaid candle I made a few weeks back and has morphed into a whole vignette. I was wondering if this would work as a future kit? I used green patina Maya Mist on the shadow box as well as these Mermaids You Make  and Mermaids collage sheets  all of which you can find at AlteredPages

 Almost finished. Still have some little details I would like to add. Here it is without the clear lucite window that goes over it. Can't quite figure out how to take a picture without the reflection of the window obscuring the details.

A simple little card

A few months back I made this collage with the Little Lassie girl image but didn't know where to take it. Being short on time I thought a card might be a nice place to display her. So I measured the inside indentation panel of the card and using my old fashioned cropping method of using two L shape pieces of card stock, I taped the two L shaped pieces where I wanted her to be cropped. I made some pencil marks in the corners and cut her out with an Exacto blade. Then I wanted to give her some dimension so I used 3D Crystal Laquer on her and the scalloped edge below her. I put it on real thick about an hour ago so I'm still waiting for it to dry. It's very hot and dry here in AZ so I'm hoping it won't take too much longer!