Here’s to you all!

Each page was primed, front and back with 2 coats of gesso, painted and embellished. A good base coat of acrylic paint, my preference being Reeve’s artists’ colours sets the background for both Glimmer Misting and Luminarte’s Twinkling H2O’s. Anything you use on paper may be used on fabric so stencil, glue, spray, punch, all these techniques will work. Machine sewing however, on primed canvas, can go horribly wrong. Broken needles, sewn finger (yes, I learned the hard way), giant holes are just a few of the less than stellar results. Unless of course, that’s what you’re aiming for. Just have a care if you want to sew on primed canvas, I recommend pre-poking the holes with a pin and hand sewing. Kinda like sewing leather.

Have fun and enjoy

This particular boot has been in the hoard for a while and when those papers came out, it was clear why Coming up, as soon as there are some good images, will be lots and lots of canvas love.

Keep checking back for more scrap candy.

YEAH, we got the cover!!

To find out how we made the boot, check it out here

To get the rest, you’re going to have to get the magazine from Altered Arts :)  It totally Alice and it’s totally Graphic 45!

…to continue with the project, when we ended the last post, there should have been 15 envelopes with the front covered with inked paper, the gummed flap covered with a strip of paper and 12 of them should have a ruled sheet adhered to the back of the envelope.

Take the 12 with the ruled sheet and using a calender stamp or die cut, designate each one to be a month of the year.  This where you can use your stash to embellish the front of each envelope as much or as little as you want.

Of the remaining 3, using what ever scrap alpha stickers or stamps you have, label one for “Christmas”, “Birthday” and “Thank You”.

By all means, you don’t have to stop here, if you make bulk Valentine’s Cards for school or if you have a generic seasonal card that you make in bulk, add an envelope for that too.

In my “Birthday” envelope, I put generic birthday cards that I make for the other kids in my daughter’s and son’s classes.  At the beginning of every school year as soon as the class lists come home, I figure out the number of kids in each class and make half that number in birthday cards.  That way when a birthday party comes around, they’re already made and just have to be labeled and signed.  Same goes for the “Christmas” envelope  - put in Christmas cards for swaps, classroom sharing, extras…

If you are not able to obtain chipboard in the correct dimensions, you can stop here.  Go to an office supply store and get a 3″ ring binder and with the help of a standard 3-hole punch, you can store your envelopes in the binder.  Otherwise…

To make the covers, paint both chipboard sheets front and back and again, using your stash, stamps, whatever is on hand, embellish the front.  You need to paint both sides because the paint will cause the chipboard to expand so if only one side is painted, it will bend and will not lie flat.

Once they are dry, using your favourite binding method bind the entire album together.  When the cards go in, the whole thing can get a little bulky so at this point, I like to add some ribbon, roughly about a half yard, to tie the album together to keep the whole thing nice and tidy.   To make sure your holes line up hold both covers together and punch 2 holes using a Crop-a-dile.  Cut the ribbon in half and tie each piece to a cover .

All done!

This is not your ordinary card calender, we’re talking BIG, colourful and organized!  So, in case you’re asking “Wench, what’s a card calender?”, a card calender is basically an envelope album where you track, store and sort your cards by month so not only do you know how many you’ll need that month, but you also have the occasion and the date at your fingertips.

Supplies needed:

Fifteen 9 x 12 envelopes – landscape oriented.  That is, the gummed flap is along the long side of the envelope
Fifteen sheets of paper of your choice
Two 9 x 12 sheets of chipboard
Calender stamp or calendar cards
Dark brown or black ink
12 sheets of ruled paper like notepaper or student foolscap pages
embellishments, rubons, stamps, ribbon, alphabet stickers/rubons – bring the stash!

Tools:
Scissors/paper trimmer
Favourite binding tool – we used a bind-it-all
Double sided tape or your favourite DRY adhesive

Begin:

From each sheet of paper, cut one piece that is 9 x 11.5 inches and one piece that is 1 x 10 inches.  Ink the edges of the larger piece and adhere it to front of the envelope so that the top edge of the paper lines up with the top edge of the envelope and there is a half inch gap on the bottom.  Wet (or lick) the gummed strip and stick the smaller piece to it.  This is to make sure that you don’t ever seal the envelope shut !

On the back side of the envelope, glue the ruled sheet on to it, any direction is fine.  This side is where you will list your monthly card details;  Who, When and What.

Tomorrow we will work on the front and find out why there are 15 envelopes when there are only 12 months.

Lay your stamp on a plastic bag or something flexible that will allow it to stick to it.

Ink your stamp in the desired colour(s) and let the ink dry. If the ink is not dry, your finished image will not be crisp. You only need to leave it for a few seconds

Next, with your favourite tool – pallete knife, popsicle stick, index finger, spread a thick coat of paste over the stamp. The paste has the consistency of cake frosting so it will spread very easily. You want to lay enough down so that you don’t see any of the stamp. Try to make the layer as evenly as possible so it dries evenly. If you are using an acrylic stamp, feel free to let the paste spread over onto the packaging, you can trim the excess away after.

This is where you have to eyeball, too much and it will take much longer to dry, too little and the finished image may have gaps in it. The layer will actually shrink as the moisture leaves and the paste hardens, so if it isn’t thick enough, it could tear when you take it off the stamp. Leave the paste under a fan or in a well ventilated area to harden, I’ve found that heat has very little impact in speeding up the drying process. After a few hours, it should be surface set where you can touch it. A rule of thumb is that if it feels cold, it’s not set yet. To help speed up drying, when the image is surface dry, run your nail under the edge of it to release it slightly. This will provide a space for the moisture still in the paste to escape.

When you’re ready to release the stamp, just slowly peel the stamp back. If you’re seeing that the paste is not completely dry as you’re peeling it back, press the image back on the stamp and leave it for another hour or so.

Once it’s off at set, use Tonic scissors to trim away the gnarly edges. The dried paste is actually quite flexible and can be painted over or stamped again.  If you adhering it to a porous surface like paper or material, acrylic paint is actually the best adhesive since the paint will bond to the paste.

Have fun!  There will be lots more examples of this next week in other projects.