Eileen Hull Notebook Pocket Kunin Felt Patina Effect

Hello Blog land, I have an Eileen Hull Notebook Pocket design using Kunin Group Felt & patina. Crazy idea right? Don't you love those? Eileen's design team are playing with Kunin felt this month & Eileen's Heartfelt release. I love looking at my teamies felt projects, they are wonderful. However, me being the grungier, painterly, mix media non-cutesy team member was in a bit of a panic. How on earth do I work with felt, and stick to my style? Or how do I make felt look grungy & cool without losing the felt in the process? I can happily say, I am loving playing with felt- who knew? *full supply list at end of post.

Eileen Hull Notebook Pocket die by Sizzix

Let's Play with Re-cycled Felt!

This is what I came up with.  I am using the Notebook Pocket die which has been re-released by Sizzix. It has the perfect pouch that fits a smaller journal in it. Let's have a mini-tutorial shall we? This project was actually quite easy.

Easy Cut Adhesive by *therm.o.web is super strong & perfect for journal covers.

Start with a piece of mat board and apply a strong 2 sided adhesive. Adhere a piece of felt. I used Kunin ecofi Plus felt (made in the USA). It is a heavier, strong felt & is made from re-cyled plastic bottles- how cool is that? Perfect for covering the outside of projects. If you want your project to have paper on the inside adhere it, or you can also use paint. Run this covered board with the Notebook Pocket die though your die cut machine. Put it felt side down to get the scores on the correct side. Peel the felt & one layer of mat board off the outside edge with the holes. This will make the pocket easier to glue together.

Felt adds a whole dimension to the patina effect.

Painting on Felt- How Odd!

First off I purposely switched and used the back as the front of the project. The holes that are punched to adhere brads to secure the pocket needed to be on the front of my project. I used Finnabair's Patina Effects kit, starting with the Brass Paste & painting it on in spots. Let that dry. I had my emboss folder & Vagabond platform ready to go. Paint the Blue & Mint-Green paste and while wet put it in the folder and run it through the machine. Clean the folder with warm water & soap immediately. 

The effect is very cool. The paint smooches (technical term) together, gets embossed and because of the texture of the felt really looks patina like. The felt fibers kind of stick out making the result look very textural. I only did the treatment to the front section, but you could chose to emboss the back of it also. 

Next I took some of Eileen's new thinlet dies from her Heartfelt Collection and cut them out of the *therm.o.web PeelnStick Toner Sheets. Using a laminator I ran them through with Deco Foil Transfer Sheets as per the instructions. Shiny!

Foiling Is Fun!

Using the butterfly over lay from the same set I die cut the felt. The secret to die cutting felt so it cuts nice & crisp is to put a piece of card stock under the felt. I also used the precision base plate which helped. Be careful to use the correct plates for your machine. For example with the Vagabond I only needed 1 cutting pad when using the Precision Base Plate. I glued the felt butterfly onto my foil background- love this combo. 

Stitchy Flower & Leaf Thinlet dies plus Kunin Felt

Let's Build a Flower

I wanted my flower to be a bit grungy so after cutting the pieces out of the felt I heated them a bit with my heat gun being careful not to let the pieces burn. I did get some cool holes however. Next was a layer of Glimmer Glam in Silver Diamonds. This gave the felt a glitter a glitter look & stiffened the fabric. You can see my foil stamen in the middle with a coil brad holding the flower pieces together.  

Twist & Style Tool

A little extra something was needed. Coiled wire, so it was time to pull out Eileen's Twist & Style Tool. this tool is amazingly easy to use & adds a lot to my projects. To see it in action you can check out the videos here. I used copper & gold wire and once it was wrapped it was easy to bend into place.

Grungy Felt Flower

I looped the ends through the brads to hold the wire securely. All that was left was to adhere my handmade embellishments. 

Here are some close ups so you can get a better idea. I painted the inside with a copper paint. Hint: an iphone 6 plus with a case also fits inside!! I also used a few pieces of the wire to add interest to my word band. The words were inked so they would stand out. That's it! Now I have a lovely notebook pocket that can hold a notepad & pen for my special thoughts. This would also make a lovely gift. Thanks for joining me & thank you to Kunin Felt & *therm.o.web for supplying some fun products to work with. 

Supplies:

• Eileen Hull Dies by Sizzix- Notebook Pocket -656235  
•                                       -Stitchy Flowers & Leaf -661903
•                                        -Birds & Butterflies -661901
•   "   Emboss Folder     "     -Starlight
•   " Twist & Style Tool  "
• Kunin Group Felt- Ecofi Plus- Black, Lagoon.
•          "                -Ecofi Classic-Pumpkin Spice, Olive.
• *thermo.o.web- PeelnStick Toner Sheets
•          "             - Deco Foil Transfer Sheets in Gold. 
• Finnabair by Prima- Patina Kit 
• Tim Holtz by Ideology - Word Band