2017 #11 Books: Art Journal Book {by Raquel Burillo}

2017 Topic 11: Books - mini, maxi, binding

Raquel's book tonight is a bit like 'something old, something new, something borrowed...' well maybe we're going something brown instead of blue!

Hi everyone! Raquel (scrapcosy) here with you today. I'd like to share with you my latest project: a Vintage Art Journal Book bound by me! I used some sections of an old book for the inside pages while I decorated the outside using some of my Scrapcosy stamps (old and new) coloured using Infusions and I created some DIY embellishments. Do you want to see how I made it? Then keep reading!

It's been a while since I wanted to start an Art Journal and when the Topic 11 was introduced, it was the perfect excuse to create one from scratch, specially since I'm now a fan of binding things! My binding techniques come from me applying (un)common sense learned from nowhere and everywhere and experimenting with materials and sizes. So far I think I've succeeded. My best friends on this subject are grey card stock, kraft paper and mod podge. If you have those, you can bind anything in any format! See my video below for full details, but before let's see some pictures and details of this project! I hope you like it! :) 

When I started the project I just knew I wanted to create an art journal in vintage look, so I went and created a brown base (kraft colour) using 2 pieces of grey card stock, an A3 paper and lots of mod podge. And I choose to work with ESC03 (Voyager) and ESC04 (Vintage Roses) mainly and I also used the handwritten text from ESC06 (Halloween) 

From there I decided roughly my composition and started stamping in Vintage Sepia Ink and I embossed some parts in gold. Then of course I added some colour with Infusions and finally I added some embellishments at the end. So here you can see how the project evolved:  

Almost everybody reading this knows how to stamp and emboss, so I'll just highlight the later steps. To add some colour I went for a selection of "muted tones" of Infusions and mixed them with Matt Glaze Fresco Finish to I create my own translucent paint: Olive Tree, Golden Sands, Sunset Beach and Sleight Blue, and I have to say that these colours (plus Rusty Car, which I didn't use this time) are my most favourite ones! LOVE THEM SO MUCH! God bless you PaperArtsy to bring us such beautiful colours into the world!!

The back cover remained simple, just coloured stamped images. I Really like how ESC03 and ESC04 work so well together. And I feel using just Olive tree and Sunset beach Infusions for all the flowers and plants and stamping each image twice and in different places makes my composition balanced. And that hint of Sleight blue in the butterfly just makes the design pop. I don't know why but in most of the cases I end up liking more the back sides I make rather than the front ones!

At this point my back cover was done and I decided that the front cover was too flat and lacked interest in comparison... I couldn't let that happen, poor front cover! So I decided to add some 3D layers on it, and I did that by creating 3 clusters: the Journal title, the postal stamps and the weirdo leaf corner. And then I was really happy with it! :)

Let's start with the simplest one, the postal stamps: I basically grabbed 3 UK postal stamps that coordinated in colour with my covers and sew a metallic compass on top of them (I prefer to sew rather than glue my non-paper embellishments if I can, and if it's a metallic piece, I like to use a minimum of three stitches, to make sure it doesn't move), then I glued the composition with mod podge on the surface. 

Then, the weirdo corner just happened by itself: I had a little broken drawer from an advent calendar (no more than 2 by 2.5 inches in size) and I had few things in there, among them some buttons, a piece of lace, a metallic key, the postal stamps and a maple leaf from Japan (how all that ended up there, I don't remember). While I was getting my postal stamps for the previous cluster, the leaf and the key landed on the project and I thought: OK, they have chosen to be there, they will be part of my project! So I added other bits and pieces from the same drawer and there you go, a corner created by chance!  

And finally the Journal title. I had planned 2 version for the titles: one where I stamp and emboss the frame directly on the covers you've seen so far, and then an alternative version consisting of stamping my frame in modelling paste and then stamp my title "Journal" on it, but since I still liked the gold embossed frame of the cover, I decided to use both ideas together, so I cut the piece of clay to a rectangle with the word Journal, painted it with Chocolate Pudding Fresco Paint and rubbed on some Treasure Gold Onyxite, then I glued it in a piece of fabric where I sew few mother of pearl buttons and added some fibre underneath to create like a nest.

And now it's movie time! So grab a cup of tea or some popcorn and enjoy watching how I made the whole thing with all the details: 

I really enjoyed binding my own Art Journal and decorating the outside! Now it will be time to feed it with some art and put that book spine to work and expand! I'm really happy with the colour selection of infusions I used, specially the touch of the blue in the butterflies. Also I feel that just using Olive tree and Sunset beach for all the flowers and plants made the whole composition very well balanced. And I love how these 2 stamp sets work so well together!

You should try creating your Art Journal Book too, instead of buying a brand new one. No need to start binding if you don't dare yet, just grab an old book, paint the covers with some acrylic paint and you will have your plain surface to stamp on and to decorate. Then for the inside, glue some pages together to get some thickness and partially cover the letters with light paint or gesso, that will give you a nice faded background to start each of your projects. That is what I plan to do on mine :) And if you see that your art journals tend to become bulky because you stick too many layers and 3D elements, remove some pages from the book in between each project, so you make some room. Also consider adding a lace to close it down or an elastic band like moleskine notebooks have. Or even better, attach a padlock mechanism, to get a more romantic/vintage feeling book, which only you can open with a key. Actually, that would be a nice "secret diary" present that you can handmade and give to someone special, a daughter, a niece, a bestie, you name it! If you have other ideas, please share them in a comment below, I would love to read them and I'm sure we will all get inspired by you!

See you soon either in PaperArtsy blog, in my blog or anywhere else below:

Blog - https://scrapcosy.com/
YouTube - subscribe for more videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/scrapcosy
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/scrapcosy/
My Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Scrapcosy

Isn't Raquel such a delight ?! I really love how she brings her own flair to 'Vintage' in such interesting ways! There are so many great ideas within this project, I really hope you get to try some too! ~ Leandra

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