AAJ1 Back & Front Covers

We did this WRONG.

Learn from our mistakes.

This is what you are supposed to do and what we've done with every altered book journal since.

1. Decide if you want to have a hollowed out storage space at the back of your book, or even if you want to leave that option open.

2. Flip through the book.  Every 10 pages, remove 2 or 3 pages.
Yes, this could take a long time.

If you're leaving the back third to half of the book as is to make a hollowed spot, just do the page removal process on the first half of the book.

3. Do it again until the book looks very thin and "gap-py".

4. If you're doing the hollowed out storage section, do that first.  With the wear and tear of crafting in the first half of the book, you'll have a good idea how sturdy your "box" section is.

Or, ya know, don't.  I can tell you that I was very uncomfortable digging out the back of my book with all my finished pages in it.

Because we did it wrong, by the time we had 12 Challenge pages done, the book was already getting too thick.

oops - guess we should have pulled some pages out

One of us had the idea to hollow out the back half and use it to store all the cards and things we'd mailed to each other over the year.

I don't remember if we glued the pages before the hollowing or not.  I think we did not.  I just marked an outline of where I wanted the sides of the box to be, grabbed my craft knife and started digging.  This was my least favourite part of the whole book.

I do know that I glued and double-sided taped several pages together to be the "lid" of the box.

The covers

Front Covers
Left = Zoo
Right = Red Bear

I had an old calendar that had these beautiful floral photos printed on black backgrounds.  I chose two pink and Red Bear, of course, chose two red calendar pages to hide the original cover of the books.

I had a mask/stencil that I put on my front cover with the idea of spraying it, changed my mind, pulled off the stencil and was left with what you see.  I stressed for a long time trying to figure out a way to fix it until I just decided to let it be.  Lesson Learned.

Left = Zoo
Right = Red Bear

Under my back calendar cover, I glued a length of bias tape to use as a closure method when the journal was finished.
You can see that after a year of playing, the bias tape began ripping up the photo from the bottom. [left pink cover, bottom left quarter]

All of the edges of both of our books are worn.  Partly because it was glossy photo paper and partly because these books spent a year bopping around our craft rooms.  Getting crafted in, getting stuff piled on top of them, in my case for sure, tossed onto the floor to make room, having wax and parchment paper wrapped around them as protection from paint or other crafting processes. Red Bear's book also travelled across the country at least twice.

There is no way that just looking at a finished book will exact anywhere near the amount of wear and tear these books went through.

Do the covers last.

Metal Blog page for real

After practicing with the metal tape, Zoo and I were to do a page in our AAJ2 using this technique. I once again pulled out a variety of things from my collection and went to town. I wanted to use drywall tape, fun foam embossed to look like waves on the water, my tree punch and left over twig punches from Zoo’s punch. These things all reminded me of nature and the great outdoors so I figured I would do a camping theme. Growing up we did a lot of camping and fishing in remote areas and to this day, I love exploring in the woods, hiking, scrambling up and over hills and mountains (I dislike bugs a little more now though).

I started with the drywall tape diagonal across both pages, as the walking path. Then I added the road using my 1999 Lyuell Harlow LG611 Stone Wall brass embossing plate. This I experimented with in my Big Shot. I put the metal tape on strips of card stock, ran it through the Big Shot, and then applied it to the page using more metal tape. Being a very thin brass plate it and then layers of tape on top, it didn’t show a deep embossed effect but doable for this. I thought I needed a defining line between the path and the road so I used the beaded string to make the road edges. 

                  Next, I started on the lake. I used the fun foam with waves embossed in it (purchased at the Dollarama). I cut it to fit up in the corner and wanted to find something in my stash to act as a rocky shore. I had purchased, from the fabric store, a set of two 80’s patches with antique brass half domes sewn on them. They were 99 cents and so I bought one for myself and one for Zoo. They reminded me of the shoulder patches in the Michael Jackson era and made my day at the time. Zoo, of course, didn’t have a clue why I had bought them or what the heck to do with them when she received hers : )        They did work perfect for a rocky beach, though, so this page was making me smile all the way during the process so far!

 For the grass, I used a million twig punches. Zoo needed a twig punch for some Christmas cards we were working on a year or two ago and I found one at Walmart here and sent it out to her. Before I send it, however, I killed my hands by punching out a million of them for my use. Well, I used up almost my entire stash in this project. The grass is made up of many, many layers of the twig punches glued on and then taped over. I found that my double-ended embossing tool worked the best to bring out the desired texture. I love the grass. I guess I am a little bit of a tactile person and running my hands over the grass and other areas on this page feels cool.

The tree in the upper left corner is made with my Fiskars tree punch. It was too small so I cut out more of them and trimmed the branches off and added them to expand the branch system. It turned out cute. The page needed a little something so I added a van cut out of card stock and taped over. I attached it using foam dimensionals on the top and glue and the two metal brads (bought from Dollarama years ago – yes… I love the dollar store!!!). 

 

I painted it with the black paint a couple of times until it had the effect I wanted.

I must say, that I do love this page. I had my book standing up on my table with this page open for weeks. Playing with metal tape is fun and inexpensive. Zoo and I will have to do more with it in the future.

 Enjoy! Red Bear : )

Metal Tape Practice

Hello again. Long time no see! Life… you know : )

Zoo found something on line about making boxes, frames and tags with metal tape. Ironically, this was at the same time that my husband and I were doing renovations and were using this product. Needless to say, I was intrigued to find a use for the tape that didn’t involve long days of ripping a building apart and months of rebuilding it.

The links she originally sent were as follows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4NI_8DdCJM&list=PLVqfrnNFxTJRqepNH0IgKvndDhPsLnBed&index=6 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmCdZ1QfYVY&list=PLVqfrnNFxTJRqepNH0IgKvndDhPsLnBed&index=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGc7Nd_xCY8

We decided to experiment during one of our Skype craft sessions and began by rummaging through our supplies to see what variety of things we could try under the tape.  I found: metal and paper die cuts; sequence shapes; punches; chip board buttons; a button; a pink felt heart; bead string; raised red stars; and a wooden oval with the letter T cut out of it. I tried different numbers of layers to see how the tape would cover each thickness (I wrote the number of layers beside the objects glued to the page).

 I then covered the entire page with metal tape. Not knowing what I was doing, I put the tape on in nice even rows so only the objects show through.  This looked very blah when finished, so I added more layers and shapes of tape on top to give it some character. Finding things to push the tape into and around the objects was a challenge. I ended up using the lid to a gel pen and my fingers for the most part. Using my double ended embossing tool, I added details like a spider web, grass, etc.

When it came time to paint over the tape I used Crafters Acrylic paints purchased at Dollarama. I tried three colours per page and discovered that I prefer just plain boring black. The other colours I found just looked odd. 

Lessons I learned in this experiment were that: different size and shape pieces of tape gives the paint more places to sit to show off the object; tears in the tape going over the beads and wood objects can be hidden when painted; even one layer of paper shows up through the tape, so it is not always necessary to layer objects to be seen; and adding details with pens or other tools is fun and adds personal touches.

Have fun! Red Bear : )