Another Background Salvage

I finally got around to turning the 30 sheets of backgrounds I received in ccswaps' Background Swap into a resource book. I signed up 3 times and made gessoed sea sponge, mists & plastic wrap, and luminous paste backgrounds.
I thought it appropriate to use an old background, that I didn't like, and turn it into something I did like for the cover. This was an experiment that went bad, and everything I added just didn't help. It started with color mists & gold perfect pearls, got scratched & walnut ink added, even wiped gesso over it. Don't know what I was thinking at the time. I put it into my look at later file.

My friend Maggie sent me to Artylicious blog to see how Glenda used the small Cuttlebug embossing folders on a larger piece of paper. What she did was so cool, go look!!!! It got me wondering if I could use the large folders to emboss even larger pieces of paper. I needed paper 6" x 9-1/2" to use for the covers. In order to fit the paper through the Cuttlebug, I had to fold it. That was ok, I was experimenting. And I know if I had a Wizard, I probably wouldn't have to fold the paper, but that machine is too hard on my wrists. {It is probably NOT recommended to place this thickness of paper through the Cuttlebug, don't try this at home if you're not willing to take a risk of damage to the plates or machine itself, and if it does: don't blame me}

I decided for the corners to just run the end through the machine, then back it out so I wouldn't have too many layers of folded paper.
I discovered the paper that was folded under the embossing folder got flattened where I had previously done the embossing.
For the second sheet, I folded the paper in half and placed both halves within the folder. {see note above about possible risk}
One half was a positive image and the other half a negative image.

I highlighted the raised areas with Distress ink and sprayed some home made color mists and white perfect pearls to add some color, sheen & contrast.
I think all sheets of paper look better when they've been folded over cardboard and finished as a cover. This will be the back. Not sure if I'll add anything to it later. [The color sprays resisted the gesso and just wiped right off. : ( ]

I lined the inside covers with some old crayon resist backgrounds and wrote out what backgrounds were in the book and who did them. Each person wrote the directions on the back of their backgrounds, now I have a great resource book. The page you see, is a Gesso Resist Technique done by Trish B.

For the title, I wanted to play with a new toy I picked up, the texture hammer by Tim Holtz. I took a chipboard B cutaway and gave it a good pounding.
Covered it with black acrylic paint and decided it needed more pounding.
Used my finger to rub on and then mostly rub off some Lumiere paint.
I wanted glitz, so I sprayed over it with Radiant Rain Mist.Glued my B to some light blue paper and added the title.Mounted my title block to the front of my background resource book. Love the contrast and how I transformed some just ok (to me) paper into a cover I like.