Concertina Book with NEW Kate Crane Products {by Katy Norgate}

Hi everyone

Katy Norgate here with you, feeling very excited to be sharing my very first blog post for PaperArtsy! Those of you that know me, will be aware how much I love everything Kate Crane, as well as using lots of colour in various mediums! To me that makes Kate’s designs, combined with PaperArtsy products, a match made in heaven. It is my pleasure therefore to start by showcasing Kate's brand new release of stamps and stencils just announced here last week, with this concertina book.

When I was considering what to make, I just couldn't decide which stamps to use, being spoilt for choice with all the gorgeous funky characters; so a concertina book seemed like the best way to use several. I really enjoy making them, as they are quite absorbing. I love getting messy making backgrounds too, so I show you some of that process using a gel plate, alcohol inks and alcohol markers. Be warned though, as I get a little carried away!

I first used Kate's new stencils PS453, PS454 and PS455 all available from a PaperArtsy Stockist, to make background papers, using various alcohol inks and markers on a gel plate. As you will see in 'first layers' I don't know when to stop, which can cause a bit of a problem when trying to choose a colour scheme later.

I used Kate's new stamp sets KC009, KC010 and KC011, all available from a PaperArtsy Stockist, stamped onto Paperartsy smoothy 240gsm card SCA4 and coloured each of them with mattints: glow MT01; nutty MT02; fern MT03; jam MT05; dragonfly MT07; the pink MT08; greenstone (MT09) and riverdeep (MT11) available from a PaperArtsy Stockist

Time to get messy! I believe this is my favourite activity, making backgrounds on the gel plate. As alluded to earlier, I don't know when to stop, using several colour combos. Firstly I laid a stencil onto the 'clean' gel plate (mine is now stained quite yellow, but still works perfectly) and used alcohol makers through the stencil. The benefit of this technique is that the marks on the print will be quite defined, and the markers dry quickly. I followed the same process for each stencil.

Once all the spaces are filled, I remove the stencil and then apply a thin coat of acrylic paint with a brayer. Any acrylic paint will do here, but I used fresco chalk acrylic, snowflake FF15.  Lay card stock down, while the paint is still wet; burnish all over and then lift the print. I use a 200gsm printer quality card, it doesn't need to be anything fancy. 

Hey presto and you have your print.

Next I got out the alcohol inks. Kate has a fabulous video on the PaperArtsy People facebook group page, in the featured section, demonstrating how to make prints on the gel plate using alcohol inks Kate's alcohol ink technique tips.

Lay the stencil onto a clean gel plate again, and then gently allow drops of ink into the spaces. The ink will get everywhere, including under the stencil. I used various colour mixes, trying to choose colours that if blended, would make harmonious purples and oranges, rather than mud. As you can see from the photos below it looks a hot mess at this stage!!

Keep the stencil in place until the inks start to dry, it shouldn't take long, but will depend on how much ink you use. If you lift the stencil too soon, the inks will move and merge together and you will lose the definition of the stencil. Which can actually still make a great print, but not necessarily what you had intended! Once you have removed the stencil, allow the ink that crept under it, to dry completely, before applying a fine layer of acrylic paint with the brayer, to lift the print in the same way as I did when using the markers.

You will find that there is still lots of ink dried on the stencil, this can be used to make second, third and fourth prints which will be more subtle. To do this, I apply a thin layer of blending solution (or you can use a pale shade of ink in a contrasting colour) to the gel plate, spreading it fairly evenly with a brayer, then lay the 'dirty' stencil onto the plate.  The blending solution reactivates the dried ink. This is where it gets really fun, since with each print, you will get a reverse image, but you really do not know what the print will turn out like. Some you will really love, and others maybe not so much!

So as you can see, I generated a lot of prints, after a very satisfying messy session. You can see how the prints get paler too. The more defined prints were made using the alcohol markers.

As you might imagine with all these prints, I have plenty left over for other projects, but first I had to decide which I was going to use for the concertina book. What would you choose?

Next step was to make the concertina book itself. I cut an A4 piece of kraft card lengthways, then scored both pieces at approximately 7.5cm intervals to make folds. This left a small overlap to glue the two ends together. I then glued this to a cover which I made by cutting another piece of kraft card, ensuring it was slightly larger: approx 18cm x 12cm, making two folds, for the spine of the book. I glued the long concertina into the cover, this gives me 7 pages to decorate.

After much 'umming and arring' I decided on a greeny, pinky, purply theme. I stamped lots of images onto PaperArtsy smoothy card 240gsm and then fussy cut them all, so that I had plenty to choose from.

I cut my gel prints into pieces slightly smaller than the dimension of the page, and then used other pieces of varying sizes and shapes to collage on top. I also made a piece to attach to the front of the cover. Sometimes I like a print so much, I don't want to cut it up, but I made myself!

I auditioned the collage pieces and stamped images until I was happy with the layout; this takes longer than you might think!! Sometimes I have to step away, make a cup of tea, and come back, to then decide if any rearranging of the papers and images is needed. Don't forget to take a photo when you have something you like, to remind yourself where each piece is going ... I've made that mistake before!!

With some of the offcuts, I created a page with strips held together on a smaller piece of card and some double-sided tape.

Now it is time to colour my stamped images. I chose to use Mattints for this, as shown below. I like their subtle colours, but still being able to build the layers for more depth of colour if desired. I then enhanced some of the shading with coloured pencils.

When putting the pages together, I added some tone on tone stamping with one of Kate's mini stamps KCM014 (available from a PaperArtsy Stockist) and using archival inks.

Once I was happy with the pages, I inked the edges of the pages with distress inks; secured the collage pieces lightly with a glue stick; and then added some stitching. I just use a normal sewing machine, and standard size needle, just try to avoid sewing through wet glue, as this could get into the mechanism. Here are my 7 pages, plus one for the front cover.

All there is to do now is stick the pages onto the concertina book, embellish with stickles and liquid pearls, white pen marks and googly eyes 👀 where necessary. I added some of the fun sentiments from the stamp sets, which I'd stamped onto old book paper. I also stitched some complementary sari ribbon to the cover, to wrap it all up.

I really enjoyed playing with Kate's new stamps and stencils. I'm sure you'll agree they are sooo cute? I have lots of gel prints left too, so I might actually make more pages on the reverse, as there are another 6 bank pages staring at me.

Thank you so much for staying with me to the end of this blog! I hope you will give making a concertina book a go, since this process would work with so many of Kate's character stamps and stencil combinations. 

Here are some close up photos of the finished concertina book.

 

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