Lynne Perella : new stamps in a fancy fold out book

Well hello there, Liz here bringing you a project using some of the fab new PaperArtsy products that have arrived at Crafters Cupboard. The excitement while waiting for these yummy new things has been palpable!!

I wanted to make a fancy fold-out book that showcased the new Lynne Perrella  LPC028 stamp set,

and the new Eclectica limited edition set of fresco pain.

And here's what I came up with:

 

 So for the step by step!

First, get some good quality cardstock or watercolour paper.  I have used a vellum surface 300gsm mixed media paper by Strathmore.  Cut it into 6" x 4" pieces. You will need 4 pieces, that we will be decorating back and front.

 

Paint 1 side of each card with each of the paints from the set - Seaweed, Chutney, Chartreuse and Tikka. On the Chartreuse page (the lightest green colour), add scrapings of the seaweed paint with a credit card.

 

Do the same on the and Tikka card with the chutney paint:

 

 Using your grunge paste add texture with a stencil on both these cards.

Dry thoroughly, and your pieces will look like this:

 

Next, get out your archival inks to add colour to the raised paste areas.  I have used potting soil, orange blossom and monarch orange, swiping the pads straight onto the raised areas.  Then use some sandingpaper to lightly grunge the paste in some areas.

Now its time for some dylusions to emphasise the "low lights".   I used ground coffee and squeezed orange.  Spray and mist liberally with water to get the colours to run.

Put these 2 pages aside to dry thoroughly, and start on the pages painted with Chutney and Seaweed Fresco paint.Apply a super-thin layer of crackle glaze - putting it on with a credit card. Dry then apply a thick layer of Tikka and Chartreuse respectively.   Leave it to crack, it won't take very long, and you can help it along with a heat gun.

To really highlight the texture on your pages, apply Treasure Gold with your fingers and buff with a paper towel.  I used Florentine (a gold colour) on all pages, and accented the brown pages with Royal Amethyst, and the green pages with Green Amber.

Flip the pages over to paint the backs as these will be seen.  As I knew I would be mixing up the different "fronts" so that both sides of the book were visible when flattened out, I wanted something reasonably plain on the back, with good coverage to hide the mess I had made while making the fronts!.  I painted the back first with a coat of French Roast, and then with Chocolate Pudding that I thinned slightly with water - I just made sure that I put it on with a very wet brush.

(The pages on the right have just a coat of french roast, the pages on the left have the thinned coat of chocolate pudding.  It dries matte, the photo was taken while the paint was wet.)

Put these aside to dry, as your backgrounds are complete!  Now for the decorative elements.

Grab some old book pages and some transparencies (if you don't have transparencies handy, plastic packaging will work just fine) and stamp a bunch of images from your plate with archival black ink.

I realised after I had done this that I was not going to have quite enough images from the one plate, so I also stamped the image on the top right of LPC018 (another gorgeous Lynne Perrella plate).

Carefully cut windows in 3 of your cards, making sure to keep the inserts, as these can be used as mounts on the plainer sides of the card. Secure the transparencies with double sided tape, and back the 2 larger windows with stamped bookpage (making sure that the stamped images are facing outwards as their own "page")
.

Arrange the cards as you would like to see them once the book is completely folded out:

Then, using an appropriately coloured washi tape, join them together leaving sufficient room between each one to allow it to fold.  One "join" has to be missed, so numbering the pages 1 to 4 clockwise from the top left you do NOT join pages 1 and 2, as these will be your covers. 

As you can see from the picture above I have joined page 1 to page 4, page 4 to page 3, and page 3 to page 2.

Add additional stamping to the pages as desired - I used the script stamp from the LPC028 plate and stamped with Archival Fern Green, and Brilliance Moonlight White (but any white ink will do).  I also stamped an image with white ink onto the mounted insert (top left in the picture below) and with archival black onto the frame on the bottom left panel - you can stamp easily straight onto a fresco paint cracked surface!

 Then I got stuck into the embellishing!  I used black german scrap which I sanded and Tim Holtz Ideaology border stickers to frame each page. Don't worry if you don't have these - you could stamp borders onto cardstock and cut them out, or you could diecut borders and colour them. 

I then coloured the borders with Fern Green Archival Ink.

I stamped some words in white on one side and sealed the entire piece with Glaze to really make the colours "pop".  Here are the 2 sides of the book completely folded out:

I hope you give this project a try.  It's great fun to play with your products and create a mixed media piece of art!

'Till next time!

Liz