A Peek Into My Scrapping Process: The Dreaded Binding Part One...

Ideally this post would be better off done as a video or at least by a tech savvy person, but it's not and I'm not so we are all going to have to be patient (especially me).

Okay, so right now I have my papers cut, folded, and inked. I also have my front and back cover done. In my last post, I forgot to cut and adhere the papers for the inside side of the covers. I'll share a picture of that today as well...

So before I do any binding I need to do some prep work. I need to go through every signature and line everything up how I want it. See picture for visual explanation...

Once I have lined everything up in my signature. I can determine where I want to make my holes for the binding. I am going to need six holes in the fold of each signature. Once I know where I want my holes I can start making them using one massive sewing needle.

In order to make sure my holes are evenly spaced, I am going to start by pricking three holes at the top of one of my pages. Note: I have taken out my inside pages for now. The first hole will be 1" in from the top edge of the paper, the second hole will be 2" in from the top edge of the paper, and the third hole will be 4" in from the top edge of the paper. Recap: three holes at 1, 2, and 4 inches. Set aside signature and inside pieces.

My next step. Pick up second signature. Take out inserts and set aside not mixing them with other inserts. Place this signature inside the second signature. I am going to use the visible holes as a template for my second signature. Push through the already existing holes a second time making sure to push all the way through the second signature. Be careful so as not to prick your fingers.

Now I have two signatures with three holes each. I am going to flip the top signature around so that the holes appear at the bottom of the spine. Again, I am going to push through the existing holes making sure to push through to the second signature.

When I take apart the two pieces I should have one with six holes at 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8 inches. The other signature should have three holes at 1, 2, and 4 inches. The signature that has six holes will now be the template for the signature that has three holes.

At this point I will set aside the second signature and pick up the first. I need to line up the inserts inside the signature and use the existing holes as a template to prick the holes in the inserts. Once I have done this I can set aside the first signature and continue on to the second and do the same thing.

Alright. Now I have two fully prepped signatures. I will continue to use the previous signature as a template for the next signature so that I do not have to measure each time. I also no longer have to take out the inserts and can just prick holes right through the entire booklet so long as everything is lined up. I will do this for all the signatures.

Now that I am done with the signatures I need to make holes in my cover. These holes will be different only because my cover is made up of two pieces of chipboard and does not have a spine. I need to make holes on both pieces at 1,2,4,5,7, and 8 inches using the small hole on my crop-a-dile tool. These holes will be made about 0.25" from the side of the chipboard. See photos below for visual explanation.

At this point all of my prep work is done and I am ready to start hand sewing my pieces together. I'm using a hemp twine about 2-3 arms length wide. This is where everything gets really tedious. The string is long, it's rather tricky to pull through such thick paper and you need to keep everything tight and inline. I'm not going to lie it's hard and frustrating especially if you make a mistake, but more on that in part two.

A Peek into MY Scrapping Process: What Happens After I Map Everything Out...

Alright, so we have all seen my over extensive planning process. I seriously hope I didn't turn anyone off of paper crafting. This is literally the way I plan stuff out. It is not the way 99% of people scrap. Most people just do it. I just like to plan it all out and it's really quite easy. The planning bit takes me like 15 minutes top. Just seems like a lot because I took so many pictures and typed out a bunch of details.

Anyways onto the fun stuff...

First I started off with my plain chipboard. Once again I am using a heavyweight chipboard, cut to 6X9 inches. I've covered my surface with an old tea towel so that any over spray will be absorbed and my overall mess easier to clean.

Start spraying. Spray light at first because it won't look like it's covering your chipboard but it is. Trust me! You can always go back and fill in any missed spots. My advice wait until it dries unless it's really obvious you missed a spot because it dries blotchy like when you paint walls. 

I tend to be impatient and will use a heat tool to help dry my ink, paint, etc. Be forewarned paper/chipboard will warp as it is drying, but it will dry flat so do not panic. If it is not flat it is not dry and if it is slightly warped just bend it back gently. Also a good point to note, you do not want to leave the heat tool on one spot for too long, just keep moving it all over your surface as it gets HOT!

Now that my covers are dry I can flip them over and spray the edges with mist. I am only spraying the edges because I will cover most of the surface with decorative card stock. This is just personal preference. I find it gives the book a nicer finished look.

My next step is the crackle paint. This is a product designed by Tim Holtz. If you want more information on this or any of his lines, check out his website. He has some really cool videos explaining/showing how to use all of it.

When I apply the crackle paint, I like to start in the corners. I do this because I like my corners and edges to be thicker which equals bigger cracks. This also allows me to pull paint into the middle of the cover.

I just keep adding paint where I like it until the page is covered how I want it to be. Again, I start out with more paint in the corners and edges and I pull it to the middle. The brush makes a scratching sound. There is almost no paint on the brush when I do the middle of the cover. This gives me smaller cracks.

 Here's a close up of the cracks...not sure how well you will be able to see it.

Next I determine which one I want to be my cover. I use the same mapping method as before, except now I know how I want my cover to look. 

 And I think I am going to use my right piece as my cover and the left piece as the back of my book (photographed below).

For this next step I need the crackle paint to be completely dry because I want all the cracks to be present and I also want the crackly paint to be able to resist the ink I use with the mask. I'm going to use  walnut stain also by Tim Holtz. It's a dark brown, a little darker then the brown glimmer mist. 

I positioned the mask where I wanted it, I placed my temporary clock piece over top of the mask where I want it and I began to ink over top of the mask.

This is what it looked like after I removed the mask. 

I added a few more numbers in the spots that were bare using the same technique as mentioned before.  

Now, remember how I said the crackle paint resists ink? You can see in the picture above and below where the ink covered the crackle paint and made it darker and splotchy. Well if you take a damp cloth (I use baby wipes) and gently wipe overtop of the crackle paint (that's the lightest brown color that you see) you will notice that it wipes away. That is the paint resisting the distress ink. Tim Holtz has some cool videos on his website showing and explaining exactly how it works.

 This is what the cover looks like after the ink has been removed from the crackle paint. You cannot really tell from the photo, but in each of the cracks where the paint was absent the darker brown stayed behind giving the cover a really vintage look.

The dark brown spots will blend into the cover once I add the clock piece and the name plate, keyhole, etc. You won't be able to tell where the glimmer mist begins and the walnut stain ends. It will look completely blended. 

Unfortunately this is all I can do to the cover until I bind the book together. If I add all the embellishments now binding the signatures to the cover will be even more difficult. So my next tutorial will be binding the book and then my last tutorial will be adding the embellishments. All in all, this took me about 30 minutes. The longest part was waiting for the glimmer mist to dry.

The book is slowly starting to take shape. Until next time...

A Peek into My Scrapping Process: Mapping Everything Out...

I do not know about you guys, but I love knowing how somebody does something. That something could be anything. Could be a scrapbook, a homemade card, a recipe, or a home reno. I just like knowing the process and I love step by step photos or better yet, VIDEOS! Now I am not about to make a video, but I will give you a quick peek into how I do a scrapbook page or cover, etc. The process is pretty much the same for me.

**Before I begin, grab a beverage, coffee, tea, water, whatever... 

this blog post is going to be a long one!**

As mentioned before I am a tedious scrapper. I think it comes from my frugalness. I hate the thought of wasting anything or making a mistake so I map everything out and I mean EVERYTHING. If I am making a book from scratch, like my baby book, I will pick out a measurement, cut it out from a piece of scrap paper and see how the size looks. Is it too big? Too small? Where will I put the bindings? What binding method will I use? How will that look? Only once I have answered these questions will I actually cut the paper. Oh and I go as far as to consider what paper collection I am using before I determine the size of book. If I want a specific paper, I will make sure the papers I like when cut will look good at the size I want the book to be. Make sense? Yes, great! No, doesn't much matter. After I know the book size, I cut my papers, put the book together and that's when the fun begins. 

Using my baby book cover as an example, I will cut my chipboard to size. In this case I am using a 6 x 9 inch piece of heavy weight chipboard. 

This type of chipboard cannot be found at Michaels; you will have to purchase it from a scrapbook specific store. A few places I shop at are Simon Says Stamp, Ellen Hutson, and The Scrap Yard. 

I grab the piece of chipboard I am going to be using for my cover and put the second piece aside. I'm still not sure what color I want my cover to be. My book right now is mostly kraft (brown) color with blue-green accents and some white pages. Sooo, I don't know if I want a brown cover like my previous books or if I want a tealish cover to add some much needed color. How do I decide? Easy. I take a scrape piece of paper as close in color as possible to what I am using and I try a bunch of color combos.

What I have used here is two different glimmer mists. One is Tattered leather (dark brown) and one is Caribbean blue. On top of the glimmer mist I used Distressed crackle paint in three colors, Antique Linen, Broken China, and Vintage Photo (yes, the vintage photo co-ordinates with the ink I used to ink the edges of my signatures).

 The Broken China crackle paint on Tattered Leather glimmer is too bright. I do, however, like the look of the Tattered Leather glimmer. That's the color I used on my book here. 

 I like the look of the Caribbean Blue glimmer mist. I don't like it with the Antique Linen crackle paint (which is what I used on the book I linked in the photo above). I don't mind the Vintage Photo crackle paint on the blue glimmer, but I think it is the reverse of the look I want. 

I am honestly still not sure what color I want the cover to be, so I am moving on. If I can figure out what I am going to put on the cover of the book I should be able to figure out what color background to use. So far this is what I have got laid out.  

The clock piece is just an extra I had cut out for another project...I will use a new one that's not painted bright blue. I'm going to use the mini draw knob by Tim Holtz for the closer I think. I'll use a metal chain or stretchy string (elastic) to wrap around it. 

The chipboard embellishments (name plate and key hole) are recycled from another project. One side has wizard of oz theme and the other is plain chipboard. Since I am no longer using the "Wizard of Oz" collection from Graphic 45, I thought why not recycle it for something else using the reverse side? I had three knobs to choose from, but I think the white will look best due to the white pages on the inside. 

I thought the cover looked kind of bare/plain so I figured I could add more dimension by using masks. I have a the Tim Holtz time one and also this numbers one. Originally I thought the numbers would look neat behind the clock piece I have. But I saw the clock masks with gears and thought that would look neat too. I could also combine the two.

I am sort of leaning towards the name plate being on the bottom and removing the key piece all together, but I might go back and try the masks in the background with the name plate on top and the key hole on the bottom but the top still looks bare. Normally I would add prima flowers, but since this is for a baby boy...flowers not so much. 

And because I warned you that this would be long and I am tedious and map out everything...

My favorite is the nameplate at the top, with the keyhole and the numbers. 

Alright, so I have finally decided what I am going to do. I'm going to go with Tattered Leather Glimmer Mist, Antique Linen Crackle Paint and the layout pictured in the very last photo of my blog. The name plate will have my babies full name on it, misted in caribbean blue. I'll use a black ink applied lightly over the numbers mask so that the numbers show up in the tattered leather color and look like the cover and the black will be the empty space. What's also neat about the numbers mask is anywhere I put crackle paint nothing will show up as the paint will resist ink from sticking to it. The chipboard clock will display the time my baby is born. I will cover it in the crackle paint and use a teal ink to fill in the cracks left in the paint. Will have a neat vintage/grunge look.  I will also have a picture of my baby in the negative space in the clock, laying on top of the numbers. The keyhole will will be misted caribbean blue and left plain.

Sound complicated? It's really simple. I'll do another blog post doing a step by step peek into everything I just explained. The inks and mists I will be using have some really cool properties that are hard to explain but easy to show with a picture. 

Until next time...

Painting Again...

So I started painting again. That's pretty much it, I started painting again and practise really does make perfect because if you don't practise you end up not painting very well. Needless to say, what I am about to share is horrible. Don't get me wrong if you look at it quickly the painting looks pretty cool. If you look at it, like really look at it, you can see how bad it really is. By "bad" I mean I am not following any rules and my shading is way off as in doesn't make any sense, but I don't honestly care. I am just happy to be painting again. And if I am going to be completely honest, it was kind of nice to break the rules and not care. The absolute best part was I glued garbage to canvas and painted it however I wanted. 

I don't really like the finished look. It is much too bright for me. I should have added some brown to my paint to "muddy" up my colors. With that being said, I probably went for the bright colors because I was sick of the clouds and rain and needed some cheery colors. 

If you are interested the supplies I used were all bought from Michaels. Inexpensive acrylic paint. You know the kind I am talking about...the $2.00 bottles you don't mind sharing with your children :) The canvas is also bottom of the barrel, multi-medium use. And I used a white craft glue to adhere my "garbage". Oh, the clock piece is a die I have (Tim Holtz) and the textured paper behind the clock piece is a piece of used round sandpaper which I absolutely love. Hubs found that for me for this project :) Hindsight, should have kept it for something else. I guess I just have to get him to build something so I can have another ;)

List of garbage:

~ ripped cardboard

~ paper ribbon

~ drywall tape (yes, I use it for a lot of things)

~ scraps of paper that I dry embossed

~ tissue paper from a mandarin orange box

~ crinkled cardstock 

Hope I've inspired some of you to get creative, or at least inspired you on what not to do. LOL. Side note, that's not really relevant, the pink candle and candle holder are from my mother in law. They burn really nice. Don't have any wax run off. Does that make sense? I am currently using them to hold my washi tape. 

Take care :)

Scrapbook Storage...

As previously mentioned I am on the look out for craft supply storage as I am losing my craft studio space. I have come across quite a few ideas. If you are interested in storage solutions check out my Pinterest page, you can find it here or click on the Pinterest link on the right hand side of my blog. So far, all I know is that I am going to have my supplies in closed storage and that I want a simple categorized log book of all my supplies so that I don't have to rummage through all my containers looking for one thing. Time is precious people and I like knowing exactly where my stuff is. I am also a bit of a keener when it comes to organization.

My log book as I like to call it, will be a cute binder that will sit on a shelf above my computer. The book will contain information on everything I own. As of right now I have found a way to catalogue my ink (sorted by color), punches, and glimmer mist. I'm still working on how to catalogue my embellishments, dies, paper, etc.

For my ink pads, I organized by color, I stamped each ink labeled it with the color name and manufacturer (ex. Faded Jeans - TH, the TH stands for Tim Holtz btw) I have a sheet like this for every color under the rainbow as well as neutrals and I created the chart using pages on my Mac (equivalent to word on a PC).

I just punched my shapes out on white card stock and stuck them to black cardstock. If you are interested I buy white card stock at Staples. It is a heavy weight similar to Stampin UP, but less money and a whole lot more paper. Great if you like to make cards. 

These are my glimmer mist colors. I punched the shape out of white card stock and misted the paper in each color. As I get more mist I will do a sheet for each color...and I just realized the top of the page says Ink Color...OH WELL! I love glimmer mist, my only complaint is that the bottles are not uniform in their spray pattern. I recommend doing a trail spray before you add to your project. 

Otherwise a great product. :)

I have a similar chart for my copic markers that I found on the copic website. I will probably do something for my dies that is similar to what I did for my punches on black paper. As for everything else I have no idea what to do. I might organize my embellishments by type (ex. metal, kraft, buttons, brads, chipboard, etc), catalogue the type and list what I have by manufacturer and name. My paper is pretty straight forward. I already have it organized in these plastic bag type things I found at Michaels. I don't have a lot of lose 12 by 12, I do have quite a bit of lose 8.5 by 11 but I have those sorted by color in a filing cabinet. My ribbon/lace is organized by color already see the link on that here. Anyways, I still have a lot of planning to do, but it's coming along. I will share more as I come up with suitable solutions for me. Again if anyone has any ideas feel free to comment. I welcome any and all tips!