Karen Bearse Designs: October 2018

Hello Blogland, today I am back to decorate the inside of my spooky wrap journal from last week! I love making these books but I am less fabulous at working on the inside. DCWV gave the Eileen Hull Inspiration Team a paper stack to play with. I scored the Spooky & Sparkly stack. I thought today I would come up with some simple formulas to create pages. This makes it easy as I work through my book to add tags, flips & pockets.

Here is a hodge podge of items I made to include in my book. It is kinda hard to just take one photo to show all the fun. There is a flip through video of my book too, below so you get to see all the nummyness! Working from one paper line can make the job easier as it limits the "now where did I put that...favorite sticker" syndrome.

Here is a photo and link to make the outside of my As the Crow Flies Wrap Journal.

First up on the day I started creating this project, a fine fall day in October, it was 82 degrees out. This makes it a little tough to get in the Halloween mood. The obvious solution was to crank up the AC, put a Halloween t-shirt & cardigan on & have Nightmare Before Christmas movie & a few episodes of Supernatural on to set the tone!

I made a video flip through so you can see all the fun elements in this book. Plus I have the written tutorial with some of the highlights & supplies for making this spooky book.You can find this 12x12 paper stack at Joann Fabrics.

I started by cutting my paper stack. The great thing about this paper pad is there are 2 pieces of each paper plus a sticker sheet. I have 1 booklet to show you today with the idea of adding to it. I cut paper in 2 sizes- 6.5" x 4.5" & 8.5" x 4.5. I cut the height 4.5" as I wanted to be able to use elastics & slide the booklets in & out. If I was adding them in permanently I could have made the books a little taller. Beware of the pattern when cutting so your bats are flying right!

I have been working on batch creating to save time. The idea is instead of creating one item you work in batches to save time. I also wanted to add in distressed ruled paper so I cut some of that. This is one of my favorite techniques, cause the paper ends up all crunchy. I distressed the paper with Eileen's Colorbox Blends in Ebony & mixed up some water colors on my craft mat with the Blends & water. Did you know that Bay & Wildberry make a very pretty purple?

Next up was to add some stamping. Basically stamped a little something at the top & bottom or 2 corner sides. I can always add titles as I go.

Time for tags! Using the Blends to distress the edges of some tags, plus some more stamping. These tags can be used for photos, journaling or ephemera. Maybe a favorite candy wrapper!

Let's add foil. The paper stack by DCWV has silver foil touches that go fabulously with the paper line. I decided to add some more foil using Therm*O*Web & various techniques to make that happen. So many options!! Using one of Eileen's latest thinlet dies- Journal Card, Flower & Leaves to cut double sided adhesive. The purple tape you see holds the die in place during cutting without tearing the paper for easy removal.

Remove one side of the backing & place foil shiny side up. Simple burnish with a bone folder or your finger. Lift foil off & you are left with a shiny, happy, embellishment sticker that can be placed where ever you need to add some wow. In this case I added some to my pockets & tags.

The second way to add foil is using Peel n'Stick Transfer sheets. For this you need a heat laminator. I die cut the word wander & added a new foil called Glittering Green which is so cool as it has the look of sequins kind of embedded in it. Sandwich the die cut with the foil color side up between a piece of parchment sheet & run it through the laminator.

The 3rd way was making a side tuck spot using Deco Foil Clear Toner Sheets. Here is a Therm*O*Web video showing the sheets & how to use the heat laminator.

Finally using the Transfer Gel I edged a card with it & added red foil. This is also a great way to add some stencil work. Simply apply the gel, let dry clear & use the same sandwich as above to set the foil on your project.

This book definitely required lots of pockets, tags & tucks. I cut some tags with Eileen's die & paper from the stack using the Credit Card, Sleeve & Tag die then added tabs using her other dies. See my video above for more info on the individual die pieces used.

Here is an example of the Credit card sleeve at work on the left side. The right side has a simple pocket. The spider & crow are stickers from the paper stack.

Who says Halloween can't have flowers? I cut them using the Flower & Leaves dies out of one dark, & one light foiled paper & sandwiched them with a brad. The flower was used as a tab to lift the pocket card. I added some washi at the top to make the card flip. This book was so much fun to make & is now ready to go as I take photos this Halloween season. As the book has room for 4 signatures I can add more to it. Please head over to Eileen Hull's Blog to see what the rest of the Inspiration team is up to this week!!

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