Book Study - Texture with glue

We're doing a Book Study as a group on NGS, using Nancy Curry's book "Texture Effects for Rubber Stamping". This week we are looking at her card "Parallels". In this card Nancy uses cut strips of backgrounds and a glue gun to add texture.
I started with a burgundy card, a piece of black paper and a mottled gold wall paper sample. I stamped a flourish design in black Versafine ink on each of them.

I stamped on a texture stamp and a swirl stamp with gold Brilliance ink on the wall paper sample and the black paper.
I cut these into 1" wide strips. Choose 3 black and 2 gold strips to use in this card and ran them through a xyron sticker maker.

Working with one strip at a time, I ran a squiggly line of hot glue down the strip. While the glue is hot, used the corner of an old credit card to create varied texture in the glue.

Once each strip had a glue squiggle, colored them with bronze metallic mixaives, using dried mixative and a waterbrush filled with Alcohol Blending solution. Nancy used metallic rub ons to color her glue, but I didn't have any of those.

I finished my card, by gluing these strips down onto the stamped burgundy card.

If I do this again, I think I'd use a regular glue gun, instead of the low temp glue gun. I think the lower temp glue dries too quickly. It doesn't give enough time to play with creating texture in the glue before it cools off.

One World - One Heart Give Away

2/12/09 Update:I did the drawing this morning and Gabby is the winner! I'm waiting her details to send out this book. Check out her blog at Colorful Adventures, her creations are gorgeous.
I'm happy to participating in the One World - One Heart Giveaway for the second time. This year I am giving away this Fabric Purse Pocket Book (Info on how to enter below).
Cover:
Inside cover and front of page 1:

Back of page 1 and front of page 2:

Back of page 2 and front of page 3:

Back of page 3 and front of page 4:

Back of page 4 and inside back cover:

Back cover:

To enter to win this book:

1. Leave a comment with this post, including your email address, so I can contact the winner.

2. Comments must be made by midnight PST on Feb 11th.
Winner will be drawn, announced and contacted on Feb 12th. Remember to be eligible, leave a comment with this post, including your email address by midnight PST Feb. 11th.
3. Please note, only the book in this post is being given away. As noted in the other posts, those fabric books have been sent to specific people. These are one of a kind books. I made no duplicates. (info update 3/4/09)

If you want to learn more about One World - One Heart Give Away, click on their logo (large blue circle) in the right hand column on my blog. You'll see a list of other participating artists. go have fun!
If you're curious on how I made this book, read on.

The book is based on a design by Belinda in the Jan/Feb issue of ClothPaperScissors. I used the templates included with the article to cut out purple felt. Then sewed Batik fabrics onto the felt with variegated thread in decorative stitches.

For the inside covers I stamped on some flourishes with gold Lumiere paint. (If you do this make sure you wash the paint off your stamps as soon as possible.)

Then stamped some butterfly images with light purple Fabrico ink.

Sewed on a pre-printed "word" ribbon to the inside covers and attached decorative metal frame with brads.

I used black Versafine ink to stamp on words and sayings to the fabric pages. The images are printed onto gessoed canvas paper. The pages were sewn together with decorative fiber and more fibers were tied onto the main fiber. The heart and dragonfly embellishments were colored with dark brown alcohol ink and then with copper metallic mixative. The heart was tied on to the cover and the dragonflies sewn on to each of the pocket flaps.

If you want to see more, here is the first book, here is the second book and here is the third book.

Book Study - Texture with Webbing Spray (I make do with an alternative background)

We're doing a Book Study as a group on NGS, using Nancy Curry's book "Texture Effects for Rubber Stamping". This week we are looking at her card "Perfect Paisley". In this card Nancy uses webbing spray to add texture to her card. Nancy says, "Webbing Spray is one of the easiest textural tools to use once you get control of the spraying....it looks better if the spray falls down to the paper." I admit I haven't had success with webbing spray in the past, even with letting it fall down of the paper. My cans of webbing spray have gone off to be enjoyed by another crafter. I decided not to buy more webbing spray, but to try to get the textural feel of Nancy's card with another method. In my stash, I found this piece of Black Pearl Paper (which uses paper towels as a base) I made last spring, and wave pattern stamped onto blue card stock.
I wanted to add some gold highlights to the blue paper, I stamped on a textured image with gold Encore ink. Then cut out three 1" squares from this paper with a square punch. Next I cut two of the 1" squares in half diagonally.

I cut out a piece of black pearl paper into a 5-1/2" x 1-3/4" strip and adhered the triangles and diamond as Nancy had done with her card. I layered the black pearl paper onto a strip of gold metallic paper and then onto a black card. I glued on three black buttons to finish the card.

My card isn't as striking in appearance as Nancy's, but I like it.

Another Fabric Purse Pocket Book

I am so thrilled that Fiona taught me how to use my Photoshop Elements, I decided to make her one of these books, using the canvas paper for the images. I used some of my batik scraps with variegated thread sewn onto blue felt pieces.
I choose some of my favorite vintage images from the web to print on the the canvas sheet and stamped some words on them with black Versafine ink.

And stamped some words and sayings on the fabric with the same ink.

I found I could also use a waterbrush pen filled with alcohol blending solution to reactivate dried metallic mixatives to color metal embellishments.

I tied together the pages with an assortment of ribbon and fibers. A metal heart with attached ribbon was sewn on as a decorative element. And the metal W was sewn on the page with fibers attached.

Inside front cover and front of page 1. I sewed on metal flower beads with fibers attached to each pocket flap.

Back of page 1 and front of page 2.

Back of page 2 and front of page 3.

Back of page 3 and front of page 4.

Back of page 4 and inside back cover.

Back of book.

Twisted Alcohol - Oops!

It was my turn to do a demo at my local stamp club and I choose Tim Holtz's Twisted Alcohol Ink Background. I choose the same colors for the alcohol inks as when I made these.
The demo was going along as planned, until I went to dry the background with a heat tool before stamping the embossed image. As I was drying the background, the paper began to buckle. I must have accidentally placed some glossy photo paper in my glossy card stock scrap bag, oops. We all decided the buckling was a cool effect and I carried on. (Sorry there are not step by step photos for this, I didn't take my camera to club with me. The technique is almost the same as when I did the cards here.) I wanted this card to be wintry, with a promise of spring to come. The butterflies in the lower left corner are white rub-ons. The large butterfly in the upper right corner was a 6 leaf large paper flower. I tore off two opposite petals. Used silver metallic mixative to add silver stripes to the butterfly wings, added a silver brad and some wire to make the antennas (click here to see how to turn different flowers into butterflies). For the tag, I stamped the floral flourish with black Archival ink on to a chipboard tag and adhered a piece of vellum with the word "Blessings" on it, attached it to the card with black brads and a metal flower charm. The black layer is a piece of black card stock with a white core, that was embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder and sanded to reveal the white.

SweetPea's "IT" Gift a Fabric Purse Pocket Book

I wanted to get an early start on Sweetpea's "It" gift for an Art-Venturers swap. Her turn isn't until February, but I was struggling creatively with her theme of "Bold, Funky and BRIGHT with black and white checkerboards ". When I saw Belinda's Fabric Purse Pocket Book in the latest issue of ClothPaperScissors, I knew I could do it with fabrics I already had, and creating images on the canvas sheets. I had about 1/4 yd of black and white checkerboard that I tore into strips to make fabric "ribbons" and sewed them on red felt pieces with bright, bold & funky fabrics. Most were scraps in my stash. I had a sewing friend over to make books with, and she shared some of her animal fabric scraps with me. I used a bright variegated thread to sew the fabrics together with a variety of fun stitches.
I know Pea likes images with wings and animals, etc. Because I was working with a fabric book, my traditional method of cut and layer wasn't going to work for me. I knew this was possible to do in Photoshop, but I just wasn't getting how to do the layers, and the "help" files weren't helping me. Fortunately, Fiona agreed to meet with me via IM for a couple of days, to give me a Photoshop tutorial. With Fiona's help, I learned enough to make the images you see below and printed them out on the canvas sheets Chris sent me. I used photos I took for the backgrounds, and altered them in different ways. The other images were gotten from the web and "cut" out and "pasted" to make a single image. The text was also added in Photoshop.

I added glitter glue to the wings and allowed them to dry.

I added some text to the fabric pages with stamps and black Versafine ink.

Before I sewed the pockets together, I sewed on the printed canvas pieces. I decided to bind the book together with torn strips of the checkerboard fabric, instead of the more traditional binding I used in the first Fabric Pocket Purse Book I made. I punched 5 holes in the left edge of the pages with a CropADile and used a large eye needle to pull the fabric through the holes and tied them together. On the front I sewed on letter beads to spell "D-R-E-A-M" and a metallic butterfly charm.

On the inside of the covers, I sewed on a black & white checkered ribbon on to bright checkered fabric as both a decorative element and to become ties to close the book. I tied on a heart charm to the image on the left. Instead of buttons, I sewed on metal charms to the pocket flaps, to help hold the flaps down.

Back of page 1 and front of page 2. Back of page 2 and front of page 3

Back of page 3 and front of page 4

Back of page 4 and inside back cover, where I sewed on another metal butterfly charm.

Back of book.

I was pleased to see Pea, left a comment saying she liked the other book I made, so I'm sure she'll love this one in her "IT" theme.

I have a couple more of these books in progress. they are lots of fun.

Fabric Purse Pocket Book

When I received the Jan/Feb issue of ClothPaperScissors, I feel in love with Belinda's project: the Fabric Pocket Purse Book. I had received a pad of canvas paper from Chris that can be run through the copier, just before Christmas. I knew the canvas sheets would look great in this book. In Belinda's book, she sewed her fabrics on to one sheet of felt, then cut out the templates. I wanted more control over where the fabrics would be on the pages, so I first cut out the felt from the templates that were in Belinda's article.

For this book, I used purple fabrics (mostly batiks) and golden brown fabric. I loved using the purple & gold fabric with wing images, it helped me choose the theme of angels for this book. I used a multicolor thread with a variety of decorative stitches to sew the pieces together. A zigzag stitch was used to sew the edges down.

I had fun experimenting with printing on the canvas paper. The photos on the top row, were sent to me by Adrienne, back when I was the "IT" girl on Art-Venturers. The two on the left, had quotes already printed onto the photos by Adrienne. The images on the bottom row were down loaded from the web. I used black Versafine ink to stamp on sayings. These were sewn onto the fabric pages, before sewing the pockets together.

I used yellow gold embroidery thread to sew the pages together. I tied a key to the top of the binding with decorative purple fibers. I sewed on charms to the cover
I had some decorative ribbons with words printed on them, these were sewn on the inside front cover. Instead of having button closures on the pockets, I sewed on metal heart charms. Besides being decorative, the weight of the charms help hold the pocket flaps down.

Back of first pocket, and front of second pocket.Back of second pocket and front of third pocket. I sewed on another heart charm to the image on the canvas paper.

Back of third pocket and front of fourth pocket.

Back of fourth pocket and inside back cover. I attached a chipboard circle with decorative thread to the top of the page and a metal charm with decorative thread to the canvas paper. on the back of the fourth pocket. Some more decorative ribbon with pre-printed words were sewn on to the back cover.

Back cover, I added another decorative ribbon with pre-printed words.

I have a couple more books in progress and will post them when they are finished. I'm having lots of fun with these.