Thursday 21 March 2013

Play time

Good morning friends.
Yesterday, for those of you who saw my What's on your Workdesk post, I hinted at something that I was working on that was peeking out underneath a book.....
Well here it is
I can hear you now moaning that that's not much more than I saw yesterday! Don't worry, all will be revealed as there's lots more photos! But you can at least see - it's a book; or is it........
Ok, let me give you a bit of history before I show you everything. While I was creating the samples for my new book kits I had ended up with an extra set of the cover elements for the geo kit, but no covers. What I did have however, was a hardback cover that I had taken off a sketch book. So yes you've guessed it, I decided to combine the two and create this book.
Doesn't it look cool? Lots of lovely textures going on. Here's a closer look

The base layer has been made by creating texture with gesso and once it had dried I went over with layers of Paint dabbers, Distress stain in metallics and colour washes of Decoart acrylics. The middle layer has been coloured with Tarnished Brass Distress Stain. I then added some Distress Embossing powder and heating to set. Once that dried I used Walnut Stain and Black Soot Distress ink to add more colour.
The top layer was embossed with a Tim Holtz folder. I find these work well to emboss thicker bases as they give a deeper impression. (One thing to note; when you emboss this you will find that it actually stretches the card so you will need to trim any excess to fit, yes it was a surprise to me too!) I used paint dabbers to add colour and further washes of Decoart before using the Tarnished Brass Distress Stain to add highlights to the surface.
Everything was glued down under a weight to dry. I found a leather closure lurking in my stash and used that to make a closure for the book.
So here is the whole cover....

So, do you want to see inside? Are you sure? Ok, here goes........


When is a book, not a book? When you have some spare configurations printer tray compartments! Pretty neat huh?
I had these spare from when I made my tray (which is my blog header). Being thrifty, I took some of the trays out that I felt I didn't need and now I'm pleased I did as they fitted perfectly! I covered everything with tissue tape and sprayed everything with Dylusions to add colour. It's not 100% finished inside but it's taking shape and there's enough to show you.
Inside each compartment I cut chipboard and then using a selection of embossing powders and my new background stamps to create gorgeous textures

I used Inka Gold to highlight the textures and began to add elements from my stash and words from Tim's Chit Chat stickers. I love the backgrounds so didn't want to totally cover them!
On the inside cover I added a border using my Cross Hatch Border stamp and my Characters, Franswar and Kiki. Once they were down I added some detail with my Winged Design Mask.

So there you have it, my book that's not a book.

My Book kits and masks are available from The Craft Barn HERE
My Stamps are available from The Artistic Stamper HERE

Hope you like it and hope you all have a great day.

9 comments:

Francesca said...

Onw word- Fabulous!!!!!Love francesca

Charlie LaBonte said...

That is so cool!!

woodandfabric said...

Oh my! This is so gorgeous!

Artyjen said...

Oooh! Too too fabulous ;)
xoxo Sioux

Dominike said...

C'est beau ! J'aime ! It's beautiful. I like it.

Elly said...

Don't know what i like more, inside or outside. It's stunning at all (:o)

Words and Pictures said...

Very, very cool! Love the rusty, sepia outside, so full of texture, and then how it opens up to all that vivid colour - fabulous!
Alison x

Almo said...

Hi Neil, wow,wow,wow I love this, total surprise when I saw inside, I wasn't expecting that brilliant. Hugs Mo x

JoZart Designs said...

Great piece of art Neil. Lots of interesting elements in it.
Jo x(in Germany) been going mad in the Tiger shop here! thought of you when saw all the things with moustaches!