Pages 2 Scrap: Page 2 Girls DT Project - February

“L....O....V....E”.... Altered Book

When I saw the papers for my second DT challenge I was so excited! I have long wanted to do and altered mini and the vintage papers were perfect for what I wanted to do!

I took off to a second hand book shop to purchase an old Readerʼs Digest (must have a Hardcover) which only set me back $1.10.

Then I got to work on it!

Hereʼs what you will need for this project......

My Mindʼs Eye “Love Me” Banners, Stamped, and Doily Banners,
Pomegranate Splash Bazzil Cardstock
Vintage Photo Ink pad
Tim Holtz “Love” Stamp
Seam Binding
Martha Doily
Heartwarming Valentine Love
Vintaj
Kaiser Bloom Resin
Gesso
Paint in mustard or yellow ochre
Mod Podge
Glimmer Mist in Rock Candy, Olive Vine and Santa Baby
Rock Candy Stickles
Assorted embellishments and bling

1. First of all you will need to brush the cover of your book with gesso, whilst it is still dry, get a bit of the yellow ochre paint on the end of your brush and go over the gesso, mixing it in as you go but leaving it somewhat streaky. Cover the entire book in this way, front, back and spine. Allow to dry....I used my heat gun to accelerate the process since I am so impatient!

2. Repeat Step 1.

3. Once dry, Get your vintage photo ink pad and rub it all over the book. The ink will catch on some parts and leave others bare, this is exactly what you want! Allow to dry. Repeat, focussing mainly on the edges of the book.

4. At this point you should decide how you will decorate your book cover, I wanted to have a page from inside the book on the cover, so I tore a piece out of the middle of the book, tore it roughly into a
square shape and inked the edges, I crumpled into a ball and smoothed it out and rubbed it over with Vintage Photo, then glued it where I wanted on the cover. I used the same technique to make the green leaves on the cover, but I glimmer misted them with olive vine and allowed them to dry before gluing. Once they were dry (again I love that heat gun!) I sealed the entire book with a coat of mod podge. Allowed to dry and repeated twice more for that aged, well thumbed patina. Then I used the crumple, ink and glimmer mist technique to make the heart again with the paper from inside the book. I used Santa Baby glimmer mist for this. Once dry I used my Versa Marker Stamp Pad to stamp the TH Love stamp on it, sprinkled it with gold embossing powder and embossed it.

5. I used the pomegranate splash to make the cool, blingy rose you see on the cover. I used the TH Tattered flowers die, and cut it in the three sizes (not the daisy shape but all the rest) making two of each out of the pomegranate cardstock. I love the colour of this one! First I inked (with what else?.....vintage photo of course!) and pinched the ends of the petals to give that rose petal look, then I
cut along the edge of one of the petals into the middle and overlapped two of the petals to make the flower slightly cone shaped and glued it in place (I used glossy accents for this). I did this to all the pieces. After that I just stacked them into each other, cutting the bottom of the two smaller ones to make them nestle down nicely. I pushed a blingy brad through the two smallest ones and arranged the flower how I wanted it, then I glued all the layers together with hot glue. Once the glue set, I set about bending all the petals to give a realistic look until I was happy with the finished flower. At this point, I covered every little bit of the flower with rock candy stickles to give it that cool irridescent finish.

6. O.K. For the smaller flowers on either side I made paper bag flowers. These look amazing! I simplysprayed them with glimmer mist unevenly and dabbed gold paint here and there using this tute:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHy9xEK8eww

7. The tiny red flower at the bottom left hand corner was made using the smallet die cut on the TH tattered flowers die, I just pinched, inked and cut along one petal to overlap and make cone shaped the same as all the other pieces, then I covered it with stickles and pressed a bling in the middle.

8. The tiny red rose was made by hand using a scallop edged die and the same techniques I used for the large rose. The two blue flowers on the page are the resin flowers from P2S, the doily under the rose is the Martha Stewart doily. I also added bling randomly and the cute butterfly from P2S, ask the girls....theyʼll know which one it is!

9. The little bird in a cage is the Th one (of course!) I cut it out of chipboard, painted it white roughly to make sure some of the chipboard still showed through and added crackle glaze, the birdy is painted blue, stamped with a sheet music stamp (kaisercraft) and has a small black bling eye. The perch is just
inked with....yup.....vintage photo! Where the holes were I have added pearl and rhinestone bling.

10. For the cool green silk look alike “ribbon” tying the book closed I simply cut off some seam binding, Glimmer misted it in olive vine and allowed to dry. I then used a craft knife to slit open the inside lining paper of the book (inside the cover) and squeezed in some glue, then I pushed in the binding, a bit more glue and smoothed the paper back down....presto! I added a little heart charm to the bottom and a lock charm right at the top near the book edge.
11. For the inside all I did was glue all the pages together into stacks about 1cm thick, making sure I didnʼt glue right to the loose edge, then tore out about 1cm thick stacks a couple of pages at a time, trying to keep it neat looking. This is so you can add 3D decorations later on and the book can accommodate additions.

12. Once the pages are glued, you can happily rip away at the edges, tearing uneven strips to give the book pages that grungy vintage look, then I rubbed vintage photo onto all the torn edges and right around the page edges. I painted all the pages with Gesso, then closed the book and applied pressure allowing the gesso to stick some of the pages together, then I went and peeled them back apart to give that torn and weathered look to the pages. Once dry, just rub each page lightly with vintage photo the ink will seep in more where the paper is torn and exposed than where the gesso is, giving it a worn and aged look. Then glimmer mist each page with caramel apple or another brownish looking glimmer mist. You can also use rock candy GM.

To decorate the inside all I did was tear each of the papers to make mats, pockets and heart shapes, ink
them and glue them in adding flowers, brads, butterflies and bling and the lovely P2S vintage stickers along the way.