2022 Topic 15: Paper, Seeds & Twigs {by Ellie Knol} with Tracy Scott Stamps

Hi everyone, it's Ellie Knol (PAPER-STAMPS-COLOR) with you today, and I'm here to share with you a way of bookbinding with twigs using a selection of stamps and stencils designed by Tracy Scott. In the process I also chose to re-bind a butterfly illustrated book, and create a book with blank papers to draw/play in.

I've always wanted to bind a book using twigs as the base to sew the signatures. I finally tried it making two books.

The smaller book has two signatures; therefore the spine of the book has two twigs to which the signatures are attached with thread (book number 35 in my series of binding books).The second book has twigs (from an apple tree) on its spine too, but they are not used to attach the signatures; they are for decoration only.

Before binding, I needed to make the book covers. This is the gel print that started the project...

It is a clean up print onto some recycled paper. This type of paper is from an overhead projector I use at university. After teaching, I take it home and reuse the parts that have not been written on... I love the big squares!
The paper is quite thin. To make it sturdier I glued it to a piece of thick cotton and then onto a piece of cardboard (cut to size!) using with bookbinding glue, making sure I had no air bubbles between the layers. I left it to dry properly before adding two coats of PaperArtsy Fresco Finish - Satin Glaze on top of the print. This adds a nice layer of protection!

 

 

I then glued all the edges of the cotton inward over the cardboard and went outside to find some twigs. These are from my apple tree and will do the job I hope! At least they are long enough.

I made a copy of this gel print, by scanning the original and printing it with my laser printer.  This version was glued only on the cotton fabric: I now have a background completely coordinated with my covers.

Time to face a difficult but necessary decision: cut the board in two to create a front and back cover for my book.

I then found some lace that would be very handy to put the twigs through and act as a spine... But how to attach it?

With my sewing machine and some very nice rusty color thread I sew around all the edges, also sewing an extra layer of cotton to the inside. I won't bore you with all the details of this stage; I think the pictures speak for themselves.

At this point, my project spontaneously sprouted two whole new parts! Considering the current topic, I knew I wanted to incorporate some book paper and I suddenly thought of a book I was going to restore for a friend. I also decided to make a second book to go with it: this one with only blank pages for my friend to be able to draw the beautiful butterflies... Inspiration takes so many many twists and turns! Does that also happens to you?

I took the book apart and decided to use the THICK boards again. They were in a rough shape, and I could easily separate then in thinner layers to be used again. PaperArtsy Fresco Finish - Satin Glaze came to the rescue again, now to protect the top layer of the cut-to-size boards. 

As this is a side project, I will not make this part too long by explaining the making of these covers but I still wanted to show you the gorgeous texture they revealed when covered in PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic - Snowflake with a palette knife!

Back to the covers of my initial books! It was now time to get everything in one place, the covers and background, the stamps and stencils and my notes and ideas.

I chose as my main focal, the gorgeous steampunk butterfly from Tracy Scott stamp set 74 (TS074) and stamped it directly on the covers.

I Coloured the images with watered down PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic - Copper,

Autumn Fire and Southern Skies to bring them to life.

For them to fit in the ribbon, I split the twig lengthwise. I also whitewashed them with a thin layer of PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic - Snowflake to match the cover. For extra protection, at this stage I also added another layer of the PaperArtsy Fresco Finish - Satin Glaze, especially over the stamped areas.

The front cover... 

.. and the back cover so far.

At the same time, I worked on the covers for my friend's books. I used Grunge Paste through the PaperArtsy Stencil by Tracy Scott (PS338) on the first cover...

...and I chose the twig and berries from the PaperArtsy Stencil by Tracy Scott (PS268) for the second cover.

While the paste was still wet I stamped into it with the butterfly (inked up with black ink)... I cleaned the stamp right away of course!

Here are the covers, all in a row!

I initially intended to keep the covers white but then had the urge to color them (oh well), which I sort of regret although they turned out quite good. I again used the same colors, watered down to reveal the texture.

I went back with white paint though the stencil to soften the main images.

I stamped the element from Tracy Scott stamp set 75 (TS075) onto the second laser copy of the print that was adhered to cotton, and fussy cut these pieces.  They will be used for the closure of the cover.

I took advantage of the leftovers to also stamp the cogs and screws from TS074 to be used as embellishments for the final touches. More fussy cutting!

I used one of them to add a faux-screw to 'hold' the twigs...

At this point I still had a big leftover piece of background left, so why not use it?! I decided to go for my original plan at this very late stage: a bookbinding incorporating twigs to attach the signatures to.

 

As I had two signatures I needed two twigs to hold them. If I had chosen to make a book with five signatures I would have used five twigs.  The signatures are a mix of bookpaper included and blank pages.

 

Twine was added as closure of the cover for the two books. I added a few metal elements, rusted with PaperArtsy's Rusting Powder, to tie the look together. I LOVE the corners!

For the smaller book, I made a 'button' from one the clog as the closure...

Please enjoy all the following pictures...

 

As I have hinted in this post, I think I should've stopped adding and adding to the projects but I do love how they turned out. I learned a lot too, like using the Satin Glaze on top of the papers: it makes them almost like plastic surfaces.. I used this product for the first time; I will use it again I am sure! It's not glossy at all, and makes for a beautiful surface for a book cover for instance.  

In the end I like the smaller book most, as I like to explore bookbinding and this is really a lovely way to add interest to a spine very easily. 
I hope you learned along with me and got inspired to try one of the ideas in this post!

Happy day! Ellie Knol

Blog: http://elliecreahoekje.blogspot.nl/

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2021 Topic 9: Baubles & Bling with TS {by Tracy Scott}

  2021 Topic 9: Baubles & Bling

It's time for another designer to share ideas with their own stamps, this time Tracy is here with a Christmas panel full of bling, shine. Her clever background gives an impression that strings of Christmas lights are turned on and shining bright!
~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Tracy here with you today, and I'm here to share with you my project for the current 'Baubles & Bling' topic......

For quite some time I have wanted to try my hand at creating a painted bokeh effect and the current topic gave me the perfect opportunity, blurred tree lights sparkling behind pretty baubles.

It turned out to be much easier than I expected and whilst my first attempt may not be perfect, I am thrilled with the effect and will definitely be trying this again in the future.

 

1. I wanted to create a dark background for this one so that the bokeh effect would be more prominent so I decided on Fresco Chalk Acrylic (Chocolate Pudding) and Fresco Chalk Acrylic (Mahogany) for my base colours, using an old brush to create a more textured look,  I decided to keep it darker on one side and lighter as it moved across the surface.

 

2. I wanted to start building the layers for my foliage so to create depth, I first started with my darkest colour which was Fresco Chalk Acrylic (Little Black Dress) and my leaves stencil PaperArtsy (PS226).

  

 

3. Next up I used the fern style leaf from my new stencil PaperArtsy, PS268 (stockists can be found at the bottom of this blog post here) and layered up, first stencilling with Fresco Chalk Acrylic (Chocolate Pudding) & Fresco Chalk Acrylic (Mahogany), as these are the same colours that were in the base layer. The stencilling is very subtle, but really helps to build depth. Finally, the top layer was stencilled with Fresco Chalk Acrylic (Toffee) to add structure. 

4. Time to start creating the bokeh effect. I began with my darkest colour first Fresco Chalk Acrylic (Chocolate Pudding), painting in various sized circles using a flat brush (of course if you have a circles stencil you could stencil these on instead).  You then repeat the process with the next colour, in this case Fresco Chalk Acrylic (Mahogany) ensuring that the circles are different sizes and overlapping in places. Continue to repeat until you have used all of the colours working from darkest to lightest... Fresco Chalk Acrylic (Toffee, Caramel, Gold Rush, Vintage Lace)

5. To add even more depth and sparkle, I next used my WOW embossing pen and WOW embossing powders, drawing over the circles with the pen and then heat embossing the powder.  I embossed with WOW (Gold Rich, Mojito and White).  I love the depth and detail using the metallic and glitter embossing powders add.

 

6. Next up it was time to create the baubles for my tree, I decided to use a couple of the stamps from my new stamp set Tracy Scott Set 62 (TS062), (you'll find a link to stockists at the bottom of this blog post here), even though they were certainly not designed to be baubles it turns out that they work perfectly. I used two of the shape stamps and then used part of the key to create the small bauble.  I painted my PaperArtsy Smoothy Card with Fresco Chalk Acrylic (Cerulean) and Fresco Chalk Acrylic (Deep Sea) before stamping directly over the top with Versafine (Onyx Black) ink.

 

7. Now it's time for finishing touches.... I added my baubles to my page using 3D foam to add a little dimension and once attached I went ahead and added detailing using gold, white and black pen work, drawing the hangers directly onto my page. All that was left to do was to ink up my edges with Ranger Inks (Potting Soil, Jet Black) and add some self adhesive gems to both the tree and baubles and of course splatter. For this I used Fresco Chalk Acrylic (Cerulean) and Fresco Chalk Acrylic (Gold) It certainly pulls it all together.

Here's a few close up photos so you can see the detail ...

Thank you for stopping by. I love how this page turned out. Although my bokeh wasn't perfect (it was my first time after all!!) it still conveys the feel that I was after for this piece. And whilst the background colours would not normally be my first choices they really do work perfectly for this project. I hope you enjoyed my step by step today and really can't wait to see what you create. I will definitely be creating more with this technique.

Tracy

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