2024 Topic 1: Miniature {by Liesbeth Fidder de Vos} on the PaperArtsy Blog

Hi everyone!

It's Liesbeth here with you today. To me, our new topic Miniature, fits like a glove! I really love fiddling with tiny materials and the ideas for my project appeared immediately! A small harmonica book filled with beautiful stamped images, that's what I had in mind. Then I started searching in my stash for something small to use as the covers... and I found some dominoes, bought in the thriftstore, nice to stamp on and a very good combination with the beautiful Ink&TheDog stamps, perfect!

I'm looking forward to showing you how I made this, and hope to inspire you!

And this is what it became! The tiny book stands on legs and is tied with ribbon, the front and back are very shiny ... because the theme for this quarter is 'Glazed'. When you open the booklet you will be surprised by a stamped 'Mystery story'!

Because I never have a concrete plan when I start a new project, these were the materials I was sure of. I chose two dominoes (4,2 x 2,2 cm) and decided to colour them with alcohol inks. Maybe I won't use them all. I chose these colours because I wanted to create a vintage look.

Some strips of smooth thin cardstock for the booklet. And of course the amazing PaperArtsy Ink&TheDog stamp sets called 'Mystery'. They appeal to me enormously, love those mystique, detailed images and they are so perfect for this tiny book!

PaperArtsy ID Mystery Plate 1(M1), PaperArtsy ID Mystery Plate 2(M2),PaperArtsy ID Mystery Plate 3(M3) and PaperArtsy ID Mystery Plate 4(M4).

Let's start!

First I coloured the dominoes by dabbing the alcohol inks. I started with the browns, put a few drops of them onto a blending felt, and also some blending solution, dabbed both sides and sides. At the end I added a tiny bit of blue. I used Ranger alcohol inks, the colours I used were Terra Cotta, Hazelnut and Pool.

Using black waterproof ink (like Tsukineko StazOn-Jet Black) I started stamping the fronts and sides of the dominoes. The most easy way is to put the stamp on the table, right side up, and press the domino onto the inked stamp. Now you can see exactly where you stamp. It was hard to make choices, so many beautiful images with the 4 Mystery sets! I chose some faces for the fronts and nice backgrounds for the sides, like this leaf.

These are the four small Ink & the Dog A6 stamp sets I used. As you can see there are so many wonderful images for the fronts and lots of nice small patterns for the sides of the dominos to choose from.

Mystery 1 (M1)

Mystery 2 (M2)

Mystery 3 (M3)

Mystery 4 (M4)

When the stamping was done and dry, I coloured the images a bit with brown and red colour pencils: hair, make-up and some other details. And now it's the turn of our theme Glazed! I added a thick layer of Glossy Accents (Ranger) onto the entire fronts of the dominoes. It needs to dry for hours so I let it dry overnight to be sure. So beautiful, it becomes crystal clear and so shiny!

For the harmonica book I took a strip of white cardstock. The pages need to be a bit smaller than the domino, one millimetre at each side. My dominos are 4,2 x 2.2 cm, so my pages are 4 x 2 cm. I decided to make 14 pages, so I cut a strip of 4 x 28 cm. Hope this makes sense :-) 

I sponged both sides of the paper using Distress inks and a foam blending tool. I tried to create a cloudy look and a vintage colour combination, the same as the dominos: Ranger Distress inks: Iced Spruce, Vintage Photo, Walnut Stain and Broken China.

After sponging the colours I sprinkled a bit of water on the paper and wiped it up. Nice!

Finally I started to stamp the booklet using black StazOn ink. I used lots of different stamps to create a varied and nice composition. I tried to vary faces, backgrounds, big and small stamps of the four  PaperArtsy Ink&TheDog ,Mystery' stamp sets. Sometime I used masking paper to get just parts of the stamp, like you see here.

When the entire strip was fully stamped, I bleached some parts of the images with pure chlorine and a bit of water and a synthetic brush. 

I finished this front side of the booklet with a red colour pencil onto the faces, and white gel pen to create stars and some accents.

The backside of the strip is decorated as well. For this I used the same colours of Distress ink as I used before, and some wonderful stamps as shown here. I kept this much more simple and calm.

Up to now I am happy with the result, let's see what happens when I put the booklet and the dominos together!

 

The strip  must now be devided in pages to become a harmonica book. So I scored and folded it. I was very lucky that my pages were exactly 2 cm. Maybe you should measure and mark more...it depends on the size of the dominos you use of course.

For the closure I glued some small ribbon at the centre of the backsides of the dominos. I used two pieces in two different browns for each domino. I glued it with tacky glue.

Here the dominos became the covers of the tiny book! I just glued the backsides of the first and last pages onto the dominos. Now I could fold it and tie it up...almost ready!

I thought it needed a little extra, some legs! So for the finishing touch I glued, using Glossy Accents,  four metal beads onto the bottom of the dominos, two each. After drying I can stand it up and see how it turned out!

And ...Ready!

My tiny, shiny, glossy, cute little vintage domino book!

If you look at the pages with the beautiful Mystery images you can make up a story!

Another detail.

Oh how I loved making this! I like the vintage look of the book and I think the Ink & the Dog Mystery stamps were totally perfect for it! Many Ink & the Dog stamps are, because of their small size and all of the wonderful details within the stamps! I hope I inspired you to create a Miniature, perhaps something small like this domino book yourself!

Have fun, I can't wait to see what you make! Thanks for stopping by!

Liesbeth X

Blog: Liesbeth's Arts & Crafts

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