Hi y'all! So you love those acrylic albums but they are way too expensive for you? You'd love to try your skills on a transparent album but are afraid to ruin one of the expensive ones? You used to do some WindowColor glass painting stuff some years ago? Well, then this would be simply perfect as you still might have some windowcolor windmill or mobile foil (PVC vinyl film) lying around somewhere.
If not you can definitely get it everywhere in any crafts store and it is pretty unexpensive...plus you can get some more albums out of the packages than just one.
Here in Germany you can get this foil in a 5 sheets package. It is thick but not too thick to cut and you can cut every size you'd like your album to be.

Okay, let's start!

Supplies:

- Windowcolor mobile or windmill foil sheets (package of 5 sheets here)Sheetsize is about 9"x12"

- Craft Knife, cutter (I used this cool Fiskars fingertip craft knife..looks weird but really works like a charm! )

- your favorite glue, I used some special glue that I got from this nice lady's shop but you can also use glue dots ...just pay attention that you might want it to dry clear!

- acrylic paint

- transparencies, rub ons, whatever you can think of

- embellies of your choice

- cardstock of your choice

- journaling pen

- waterproof pen in case you wanna journal or doodle onto the transparent sheets
photos

- hole punch, eyelet setter or Crop-a-Dile to get some holes punched


How tos

1. Well first off I cut the sheets to the size I liked...mine are about 7" long and 4" high...weird size, I know. I didn't think too much, just cut LOL You can cut them any size you like

2. Then I started painting the pages with acrylic paint...not sure if I should have done this step first...I can only advise you to play with your photos a bit and think about where you would like to place your pics and embellies..not only because you want it to look great but you might want to use the transparency of the sheets as a special touch to add to your minialbum...means that you might want to use it as a medium to enhance your pics and wordart and whatever you put in there.

Of course I did play around, too, but in the end I added too many sheets of cardboard and I think I didn't really place my pics perfectly well to keep this transparent character of the album if you know what I mean.
But this is what I call a learning curve LOL

No problem with a selfmade album...do another one...it has not been this expensive like the ones you buy.

3. Now you can do whatever you like..I added some cardboard pages, I added a piece of cloth that I stiffened with gesso, I added rub ons and printed out some of my doodles to glue them in, I doodled on the sheets, punched holes in them, well, my album still is not really ready to go, there are still some pics and some journaling missing but you can get it, i think.

The great thing about it is, that you can always add something else to it or just use it like an everyday art journal and make creating it your process of creating art... I fixed the album pages with keyrings but you can also use ribbons or any other cool thread.

Now here's my first try on acrylic!




Now have fun with yours!

Sylvie

Labels: project 4 acrylic album

Well, we could also be naming it: Scrap your crap....I can tell you, this project is fun but also a big mess! So if you don't like having a mess, you should not try it!

This project is all about altering a book!
I have been decluttering little Josh's book shelves lately from old babybooks and had some of those cute ones in my hands with 4 pages, little cute tabs ad I have been thinking by myself: I don't want to keep them any more and I don't want to throw them away. But there's no Baby around so what else could be done with them? And I decided to make them an altered book! Well it was said easier than done, I can tell you! I have been sending curses while trying to get rid of this glossy stuff that is protecting the pages from sticky little baby hands!! But one after the other.


Supplies:

* One old boardbook of your kids
* sanding paper
* cutter, knife or scissors depending on your taste and choice of papers and elements
* paint, glue, cardstock of your choice

How to:

1. Get rid of the book's surface!

Well first of all you will have to get rid of the book's surface! When you are lucky there is no glossy foil over the pages, if you are not lucky, like me, there is and this means that you have to get rid of it,too, otherwise nothing will really stick on your book pages



I tried to peel most of the pages including the gloss off..but this didn't work as easy as I had expected it to do
There were many spots of paper and gloss left and when trying to peel them off, half of the cardboard would tear off, too.

2. If nothing works well, sand it!

So I decided to sand it. This definitely is an option. But only when having a boardbook made out of thicker cardboard. If it is too thin, half of your book will be gone once you sanded it!
Now this is where the mess starts! Sanding this stubborn book was an adventure that created tons of dust and dirty smeary fingers, seemed like it took a lifetime to do it and it ended with a more or less blank book. I have been fed up pretty soon also because I love to have all done in say 2 min when having an idea for something. I definitely could have been doing it way better than I did.

3. Paint it!

Well, as I didn't want to cover all completly with cardstock I had to paint it.
Now that not all of the glossy coating was completely gone i decided to use an underground under my paint which was Gesso!

Gesso is a dry fast acrylic medium to prepare an underground (like these boardbook pages) before painting or applying adhesives to it. It is available in white, black and some canvas like color but you can give it every color you want with adding acrylic paint to white Gesso. Gesso is also an option when your boardbook's cardboard is too thin to sand and peel all off. Just prepare it with Gesso. I love Gesso, it is cool and can be used for many more cool scrapbooking projects!

4. Dress your book!

When the Gesso has dried you can start dressing and embellishing your book.
Be creative! I printed out some photos using some of my templates and painted my pages, doodled and wrote on them and used my Little Monster Papers. The good thing is when painting your pages with a color: when they are dry and you don't like the color you can just paint another color over. I'd advise you to use acrylic colors as they dry fast and they are not that wet! Otherwise your pages will curl! Add real texture to your pages: just glue some tissue paper on your pages and paint over them, stamp on them! The possibilities are endless!

5. Add the photos

When all pages are prepared, you can add your photos and your journaling! I did layer all on the pages before glueing them, so I was able to see whether I really liked it or not.

Done!! Have fun with your little book!
Here is my final product!







Hope you liked this little tutorial that much to try your own one. If you should do so, let me know! I'd love to see your projects!

Sylvie

Labels: altered children's board book, project 3

Hi y'all! Today I will show you how to do a really fast lil book out of photos that you always wanted to scrap but that are now are collecting dust in some boxes under your bed. But you can also bind some papercards, print out small versions of your favorite layouts, just be creative!
You don't need much to accomplish this, no fear, not even highly developed crafting skills LOL.



Supplies:

* some pictures, papercards etc., depending on what you'd like to have in your book.

* bookbinders glue (important!)

* thicker cardboard (sure you have some lying around from the last packet you recieved) or thicker decorative paper or cardstock. I used some cardboard for the notecards and printed out one of my "Xperimental 2" papers for the photobooklet.

* self adhesive gaffer (bookbinding) tape or, if you don't have some, duct tape or whatever you can find, that is a bit stronger than the regular office tape.

* xacto knife or cutter

How to:

* Prepare the stuff you'd like to see in your book. I used some notecards and some pictures from Josh and Jana and printed them in smaller size, so nine of them fitted on an A4 approx. letter size) page. You can use your normal photoprints as well or whatever you'd like to have a book of.I used an xacto knife to cut the photos out.

* When I had all of them cut out, I prepared my cover and back cutting it to the size of my photos. You can also add some transparent paper between cover and first page or even inbetween, to add some journaling or notes. Pay attention to the fact that all pages have to be lined up well.

* Now brush a thick coat of bookbinder glue over the lined up edge of your book and let it dry

* Depending on how many papers or pics you want to bind, you may want to use a binder clip to hold all together until the glue is dry....no worries, this glue dries fast! The reason for using this special glue is that it is flexible when dry.

* Now cut a piece of tape equal to the length of your book and tape it on cover and back of your little book. (Start with the spine and fold over)

* When done you can also use decorative tape to cover the gaffer tape and can add embellies to the covers or journal along.



Be creative!

Labels: book, project 2 hybrid