Oh Canada Travelers Journal with Southern Ridge Trading Co.

Hello Blog Land!! I am here today with a Canadian Travelers Journal. This July 1st marks my homelands 150th birthday. Southern Ridge Trading Co. has come out with a new release commemorating the event,  you can go see what my team mates have come up with! 

I have a tutorial for you using Eileen Hull's Journal die. I am entering this in a few challenges. Mix Media Monthly has multiple themes this month but I am going with travel. Emerald Creek is doing a Surf, Turf or both & Simon Says Stamp is playing with stencils! This has lots of step out pics so grab your favorite Molson Product & a Poutine, let's go! 

Southern Ridge Trading Co. Chippies on a Travel Journal

Here is my in progress journal. As a Canadian living in the U.S. I visit at least once a year to see family. My idea is to use this book to document my trips & favorite things like Canadian beer, poutine, my favorite restaurants etc. The inserts are easily removable (like a midori) which makes working on it a breeze. I have the covers finished & will work on the inside as I go. It will have 3 or 4 sections which gives me options! 

Eileen Hull Journal Book & SRTC Chippies

Let's Get Started! 

I started by cutting out 2 pieces of mat board with the Journal die. The key is to flip the 2nd piece so the middle hole lines up. You can use that hole to string a ribbon or elastic to create a closure for your book. I used painters tape to mask off the spine to protect it. and covered the mat board with gesso. Tip: Keep the covers beside each other so you don't get mixed up & decorate the wrong side. Once you get a few layers on it is easy to distinguish just remember which way is up! 

SRTC & DecoArt Stencils

Build Up That Texture.

Use Super Heavy Gesso over the entire piece creating texture with a spatula. I pushed my Canada 150 piece into the gesso so it would adhere easily & flatly. The downside of doing this is it limits my options when it comes to designing after the fact. I added crackle paste randomly around the outside edges of the pages and light modeling paste through a stencil. Set aside to dry thoroughly.  

Texture Book with Iron Oxide Glaze

Using Micaceous Iron Oxide (a gritty fluid silvery dark grey acrylic) & DecoArt Glazing medium I made a mix in equal parts & covered my whole project. This can seem daunting & over kill but trust me it is a great way to add depth to the cracks & crevices of all that texture created by the pastes. Let it dry for a minute or 2 & using a baby wipe, wipe back the color as much or little as you like. I wanted to have white in there so I wiped back quote a bit, but let the paint stay in the crevices. Rotate the baby wipe as it gets dirty for best results. Ah texture!

Next I painted the Canada 150 in Americana True Red. I used that same color & the glazing medium again as above. I did this a couple of times to get my covers the way I wanted it. Repeat with the back side. With a piece of stiff kids foam & small amounts of Metallic Lustre in Copper Kettle, hit the high points and scuff up the edges. Ah love the shine!!

Decorate The Spine.

Using the True Red again cover the spines with a dry brush. Once dry I scuffed it up a bit using the Iron Oxide. Then I stamped a script stamp using gold acrylic paint. I peeled off the outside strip on the back side just 1 layer of paper from the mat board. The glue will stick better to a non painted surface. Use a strong glue that will hold up to handling. SuperTape by Therm*O*Web is a favorite. Line up the book, adhere the front spine piece over the back spine piece. The middle holes will almost line up. Press together.

I used Eileen's Color Blends to distress the edges, so easy to use & really helps the book pop!! 

I wanted to add something to the Canada piece, it was looking a little stark. I glued some seed beads in some of the more open spaces but decided that wasn't enough. Resin to the rescue. Pouring Resin Obsession and adding some more beads & glitter shapes was just what it needed. I will have a post on how on how I did this soon. The cool thing is some of the shapes look like they are floating. 
 

I also added some Emerald Creek Burnt Copper Leaves emboss to the bear & adhered him to the front. My family's crest animal is the bear so this was very appropriate.

Threading the Spine You Have Options...

The idea of this journal is once to fit 3 books or signatures in it that are removable. Basically sliding the pages under an elastic or cord. I chose 1mm black waxed cord as I wanted something thinner but strong so I could add beads to the spine. The nice thing about using elastic, it is easier to slide your pages in & out. Simply cut 3 pieces of cord (about 20" long) and string each one through a set of holes, so the ends are facing front out of the spine.

Add your beads and tie a knot below & above the bead strand so they stay put. Tie a knot at the top hole, on the outside of each strand. Leave enough slack that you can slip the books in & out. Also the extra cord is so you can add more beads & charms so don't cut it!  Elastic means you can put a larger size book because it stretches. 
Elastic= up to 8 3/4" book. Cording = 7 1/2"ish. 

Add Some Fun Charms!

I am a bit of a craft & ephemera hoarder & it finally paid off!!! I lived in Vancouver, Canada for a year, 12 years ago and my house key was a Canadian Maple Leaf. I don't know about you but I have a challenge using "special" items. Either I can't find them or the project is not important enough & so the items either sit in a box somewhere never to be found or just plain gather dust. This time the stars aligned and not only did I remember that I owned this but I also managed to find it fairly quickly- what??? That never happens!!! These charms & more beads were added to the extra cording at the top of the book.
  
 I will be back in July with a post on the inside of my book so stay tuned!!!

Challenges:
Emerald Creeks Dare- Surf & Turf or Both
Mix Media Monthly- #27 Travel
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge- Stencil It 

Eileen Hull Mix Media House Album with Stampotique Stamps

Do you want to play a game? This month Eileen Hull’s design team are playing with Stampotique stamps. This is one of my favorite stamp companies & I have been lucky enough to do a few guest posts for them over the years. I especially love Daniel Torrents creepy, funky designs. I decided to make a mini album to document some of our summer activities in a simple one photo per page format. How about some ideas on how to use your stamps in a mini-album?

Summer 2017 House Pocket Album

Welcome To My House!

I had way too much fun designing this & just kept adding details. Here is my super mix media album. There are lots of yummy details on the cover. I plan on binding this with The Cinch binding system when it is finished. Punching the sides of the book gives me an idea of where the binding will be. Using rings to hold the book together makes it easy to add and swap the order of pages as the summer goes on. 

Stampotique Welcome Door by Daniel Torrente

 Let's Play With Stamps!

I knew I wanted Daniel's Welcome Door stamp on the cover of my book but it was far too big. Technique #1: I stamped my image, took a photo of it, shrunk it down & printed it out on card stock. You could also scan the image. 

Painting the door with some of the colors used on the cover worked well. Once dry adding accents with glitter pens made the door stand out. I also outlined the stamp details back in with a black pen. 

Using Eileen's House Pocket Die

Let's Play With Paper

I have tons of paper as a scrapbooker & lover of paper in general. I decided I would use my stash up & incorporate some of Eileen’s new paper pad for this project. I choose the House Pocket Stitchlits die by Sizzix #661902 as the base of my project. This would be the perfect time to do a smash type book. On the right is a page from Eileen's paper pad with a quote glued in. 

This is the back side of Eileen's paper. Technique #2: This is a great way to use a stamp directly on busy paper. Cover a space with some white gesso to dull down the pattern & stamp on that spot once dry. Used some water color pencils to color in a few flowers on the back ground paper & colored Carrot by Jill Penney in with the the same pencils. Then added a bit of water to give it a water color look. The flower is die cut from resin paper. 

Technique #3: Another way to stamp directly on busy paper. Stamp & heat emboss in black, I used Janet Klein's sunflower in medium. Once cool use chalk pens and glitter pens to color in the image. These pens have great coverage.

Here is the finished sunflower page on the left. On the right- Technique #4 is simple but one of my favorites. Stamp Heart Shirt on tissue paper, cut out & use decoupage glue on the back ground & the tissue, carefully place the image down. This creates a translucent look so the background shows through. Add a layer of glue over the image to protect it.

Technique #5- This is pretty basic, stamp Octopet in archival ink, color in with watercolor markers. Cut image out & paste. Use a light color like grey & add shadows.This helps the image pop. 

Technique #6- This is great for small detail that you can't really cut out. Stamp your image where you will be placing it. Stamp you image a 2nd time on card stock, cut out but don't worry about the hard to cut portions. In this case I did not cut out Reggie's teeth. Line image on top of stamped image & adhere. You can see in the photo below the teeth are magically there! 

Well that is it for now. I hope this post inspires you to play with stamps! Thanks to Stampotique for supplying some of the stamps to play with & Marvy Uchida for letting me play with their pens!! Stay tuned I plan on doing a 2nd post showing how I made the details on the front cover, flowers...

Playing in my awesome friend Kim's site at Emerald Creeks. The challenge this month is Surf, Turf or Both. I have turf on the outside & surf on the inside!
 
I am also entering this in the Simon Says Stamps Wednesday Challenge. The theme this week is "Emboss It." The eves of my house are embossed with Emerald Creeks Charred Gold emboss powder.

Playing along with a new site I found called SanDee & Amelie's Steampunk Challenges. 


Supplies:  
Eileen Hull  

• House Pocket 
• Stitchy Flowers & Leaf
• ColorBlend- Golden, Bay, Uniform, Hydrangea, Leaf, Frog, Ebony.

Stampotique- 

• Welcome Door
• Carrot
• Sunflower Medium
• Heart Shirt
• Octopet
• Reggie

ARTifacts, Documenting My Art

Finally I have a page done in my Seth Apter ARTifacts book!! For some unknown reason I became daunted by the size of the book I created. It kind of froze me in my tracks. Finally I got some ideas on how to create in this book. It is kinda crazy busy with lots of color and maybe a bit chaotic but so was January so it fits really well.

January was a Crazy Month with Lots of Designing.

Lots of Photos so Little Time!

This is my design team project for Southern Ridge Trading co. If you want to head over there I have a tutorial on how I put this together, with close ups. If you want to see the cover of my book with links to more of Seth's project you can go here.
I am hoping that getting this page done will make it easier to jump into the next one.

Seth's post on the April pages are here.  You can still join in on the fun. Seth has created this collaboration & is sharing some of the pages on his blog. Lots of good inspiration! I am off to play in my book and create some February fun!