Decorated notebook.....

....have to say I love the 8" scrapbooks you can get in Hobbycraft. Spiral bound, plain covers, decent weight paper inside, useful as scrapbooks, photo albums, art journals .......they're perfect for decorating! Had one of the Kraft ones sitting on the side and when I was doing some workshop prep the other day I thought I'd have a bit of a play :) So here's what I made, going to be a little 'just because' pressie for a friend.........

Took a few photos whilst I was making it so I could show you how I did it, just in case you fancy having a go.  Obviously wouldn't have to be on a book cover you could do the same thing on a canvas, box or even on a piece of card and mount it up onto a greetings card.

Right so first just to make life easier I carefully removed both covers, if you go gently you can do it without stretching the spiral binding too much and it certainly makes the decorating easier :) Then I grabbed a load of die cuts (from the Perfect Partner Time Traveller Range - All Geared Up and Make Time, from the Perfect Partner Country Cottage Range - Florists Friend and from the Perfect Partner Festive Fancies Range - Festive Ivy) and laid them on the cover, playing around with them until I found an arrangement I was happy with. Then I glued everything in place using tacky glue. Don't worry if your glue squidges out a bit because you're going to put a thin coat of gesso over everything so you won't notice it and its more important that everything is well stuck down. So now I had a front cover that looked like this....

and because it would have been rude to leave the back cover unadorned I popped a little decoration on there as well.....

Then I gave both covers a thin coat of white gesso and I wasn't precise with application just very roughly brushed it on. However try not to let the gesso pool around the die cuts too much or you will loose some of the texture. Next I brushed over with a very watery coat of brown aquatint; made from mixing a little of the red and green from the bright and beautiful set together. Now my secret weapon when I'm doing this type of thing is a baby wipe! After I've applied the colour I use it to soften the blend and remove areas of colour if needed.

I know it doesn't look terribly pretty at the moment but hey it's just the start! So lets get some more colour on and accentuate the texture by adding some shadows. Using the teal and the red colours from the bright and beautiful I mixed up a blue/purple colour and started to add some shadows around the edges and in between the die cuts.... 

Then it was just a case of building up more colour, even dribbling colour down in areas....was going for a shabby, distressed, vintage look so I really wasn't too precise! Mind you, you've probably noticed that!!

Also started to add colour to the greenery, wasn't bothering with the cogs etc because I was planning on getting the gilding wax on those......

Now gilding wax; I've used the Empire Gold and Antique Gold from Pebeo and if you haven't used this before......less really is more with this wonderful stuff! You really don't use or need a lot so go sparingly! Its far better to build it up slowly :) So I took it over the cogs and lightly over the leaves which highlights the embossed veining nicely which hopefully you can see in this picture..... 

Next I took some of the Pebeo gilding paste (the one in the little tube) and used it to outline some of the leaves then once the paste had gone clear it was ready for some gold foil. To finish off I stamped some wording (from the Time Traveller range) and then re attached the covers onto the spiral binding. A fun little project using a few simple techniques but creating a pretty (well I hope you think so) book. 

Thanks for stopping by

Donna x

A little tutorial.......

...I've had loads of people asking for instructions on how to make the wired flowers that they've seen me make using some of Sheena's dies. I put a tutorial on a few months ago for the Sweet Pea but I'm going to try and do one a week (she swallows hard and crosses her fingers......which makes typing hard!), so thought I'd start with the orchid.  I've used the 'Graceful Orchid' die which is from Sheena Douglass's Perfect Partner range, there is a matching stamp that goes alongside it but I haven't actually used the stamp here.  So this is what we're going to be making ..........

So lets start at the beginning as well as your die cuts, you're going to need 26 or 28 gauge covered florists wire and some Stemtex, which is the paper stem tape that is used by many florists. It is a tape which as you stretch it slightly whilst winding it down the wires will stick to itself. It comes in a variety of colours, the one I'm using here is Moss Green.

Now when you're going to wire one of these it's a slightly different method of assembling than when you're putting together an unwired one. The main difference is you will be using two sets of petals because you will be sandwiching the wire between them, thus giving you the ability to bend the petals into whatever form you want.

This is what you're going to need to cut for one flower, oh and no fancy paper or card here just plain and simple copy paper. Not only is this cheap but is also perfect for the job (I usually use 80 or 100gsm, whatever the local supermarket has at the cheapest!), anyway as I said here is what you will need to cut......

...as you can see you will have two sets of petals, one throat (the slightly fancy oval shape) and two middles (the long pointy bit). Now to colour them I'm using AquaTints (Beautiful Grunge set) but you could use any wet colouring product. I say wet because you'll want to get the petals wet in order to enable you to shape them and so you might as wet colour and wet them in one! Oh and in case you've not done any of this before wetting and shaping the copy paper 'messes' the fibres up and so when it dries it really is remarkably sturdy!

Now I would suggest that you Google whatever flower you are going to make, to get an idea of colouring. That doesn't mean you have to try and paint it as an exact match but it will give you an idea of where to put the colours and also an idea of how the flower 'goes together' in nature. Right so now it's time to put this baby together. Working while the paper is still damp (be careful because it's more fragile but it's more easy to work this way) start by taking one of the middles, apply tacky glue (any fast grab, dries clear glue) and then lay a piece of wire down the middle as shown.....

Now lay your other matching piece down on top and press together to make sure it's well stuck.....

Now bend the wired middle into a gentle curve. Next take the throat piece and first of all cut into the petal as shown.....

Cutting into it just helps to achieve the correct shaping.  Now using a ball ended modelling tool or even the end of a fat rounded paintbrush handle shape the throat so the sides curve up and the frilly front bit of the throat hangs down. The photo's below show you the shape you're aiming for......

Now you need to join your middle and throat together which because of how you've shaped it is a very simple thing to do.  Take your middle and apply a little tacky glue to the top as shown....

...then wrap your throat piece around it as shown below (hold for a few seconds to allow the glue to grab).....

....and from the front it will look like this......

Now you might notice two lines of white glue in the middle.....well orchids tend to have two raised lines running down the centre of the throat. So if you have any flowersoft or as I have used here a product called Sugartex Pollen (it's an edible product used in cake decorating but perfect for the job here!) add a couple of lines of glue as shown and then sprinkle on your 'pollen' and you will have something like this.....

So now for the petals. First of all you're going to need to cut them into separate petals because we're going to wire them as individuals not groups. Can I give you a word of advice.......try to keep them together in groups so you know which petal goes with which! They are all slightly different shapes so it'll make life easier if you do!!

Okay so this next step you're going to do with all five petals. It's basically the same process you did with the middle. Take a matching pair of petals, apply glue to one of them then lay your wire down on top as shown (note the wire goes almost the full length of the petal)....

Then lay the other petal on top, sandwiching the wire.....

Shape slightly by lightly curving the edges and then bend the wired petal as shown below. Repeat with the four remaining petals.

Still with me? Sorry for all the photos but I wanted to make it as clear as possible! It's not as long winded as it might seem its actually quite quick to put one together. Just want to give you a couple of tips about using stemtex before we go any further, firstly I would suggest you cut the tape down the middle to reduce the width. It makes it less bulky when you have multiple stems to tape and also makes it go further ;) Also as you wind the tape stretch it down slightly at an angle as shown below, the stretching makes it stick and pulling it down at an angle keeps it neat.

Right so lets get this flower wired up; start by taking the set of two petals place them side by side and using a piece of the stemtex you're going to tape them together......

Now take the remaining three petals, position as shown and tape together.....

Now slide the throat section we made earlier into place (slide it up between the base two petals and pull in tight) and tape again to secure..........and voila........you have a wired orchid :)

To make a stem of orchids simply make more than one and then tape them together to form your stem. Here's a couple more pics of another stem in a different colour........

Well hope that's been helpful! Will be back with a rose tutorial next week :)

Thanks for stopping by

Donna x