2018 #5 Nautical Colours: Mini Book with EAB {by Nikki Acton}

 Topic 5:  Nautical Colours

This is a wonderful uplifting book from Nikki! What a great little flick through if you need a pick me up, and it is full of lovely layering ideas too. Her use of tissue paper is a great tip - particularly if you are worried about stamping straight too!! Tissue paper solves that problem so well! ~ Leandra 

Hi everyone, it's Nikki Acton (Addicted to Art) with you today, and I'd like to share with you a mini book using one of Alison Bomber's new stamp sets - EAB08 - Strength and Courage.

I made a little book last year with one of Alison's previous stamp sets and it sold quite quickly in a pop up craft / gift shop we have locally at Christmas. I think these quotes are proving popular! (You can find the first book here. ) My original book was quite vintage, but this time I am adding more colour, stamping on tissue paper and adding some sketched images.

My book is 3'' square - the cover is Smooth Heavyweight Stamping Card cut to 3'' by 6 1/4'' (to allow for the spine). I do all my background paint and stencilling on both sides before scoring but add my words and focal images once the book is scored and folded.

For my Nautical colours I used a number of Seth Apter's new Fresco Chalk paints - Double Denim from Set 3 and Venice Blue, Glacier Ice and Steel Grey from Set 4 along with London Bus.

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My background was built up with watery washes, drying between colours and then sponge stencilling using PaperArtsy Stencil PS036 by Kim Dellow and Sara Naumann's new stencil  PS092. 

I also added colour to some old book pages. I used a bottle cap to create circles with Little Black Dress Fresco Chalk Paint and sketched the bird and star. I am working on being a little looser in my compositions at the moment!

All my words and some images were stamped with Stazon onto tissue paper (I used Stazon as it is opaque and therefore provides a bolder image over the paint and tissue paper). This is a great way of only partially using a stamp - eg the corner butterfly above from Hot Pick 1504 stamp set.  I stamped the whole image and then tore out the part I wanted.

For my inside pages I took some old scrapbook paper and added watery washes of Chalk Fresco Chalk Paint, followed by London Bus. A great way to use up old supplies. I only partially used the words from one of the quotes on this inside cover - one of the benefits of using tissue paper.

There are so many tutorials (Blogger, You Tube etc) to make mini books and they are great fun! The Fresco Chalk Paints make background work easy and adding washes of colour before adding paint through a stencil provides depth and contrast. (Just remember to dry before adding new layers!) Stamping on tissue paper is also really forgiving - nothing worse than making a fab background and then getting the stamping wrong or deciding too late to change the layout. The tissue paper method allows for mistakes and re positioning. 

Nikki

Blog: Addicted to Art
Instagram: @A2Acardscraft
Pinterest: nikacton

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The current topic link Topic 5: Nautical Colours will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, March 31st 2018, and the winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

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