The Smelli Album

Some time ago my friend Caro came for a visit and we obviously headed for the nearest wonderful craft store. I'm very lucky that I have several, but my favorite is Capture the Magic, they are so friendly and ready to discuss and advise on anything!.

Well, some time later we came home with some hardboard D's with the intention of making smelli albums for each other. Last week she challenged me to finish them.
At the time I had no inspiration at all and was despondent.

But at 3am inspiration finally struck. She likes things to do with the sea and if you put the 2 D's together you end up with a squashed circle = a porthole, brilliant!.

So the plan is to decoupatch the background in various blue/green/sand colours.
Ink various sea stamps and emboss to bring to life and embelly with eyelash wools, so here we go.


I collected all the little bits of paper I had lurking around and pva'd them to the D's. I didn't go completely to the edges as i wanted them as smooth as possible.

Next I stamped, seaweed, sharks, shells, and mermaids and embossed them with various colours. FinallyI wound some eyelash wool into circles for anemones and textured sea fronds.

Now for the porthole. I had some copper metal sheeting used the D's as my templates and cut the outer ring, next I went into my kitchen cupboards and found a suitable sized dish and cut the inner circle. I backed the D's with a suitable coloured paper




Using the cropodile I cut the holes for the brads through the metal, hard board and backing paper and attached the brads. To hide the brads, I used the same process to cut a strip of contrasting paper and stuck this on the inside

I cuts some strips of card 2 1/2 in wide and folded them in half, punched holes to correspond with the ring holes in the D's. These were mountings for the smellies .

As a final embelishment I coated a wooden C in weak PVA and and covered it in 24crt gold leaf, for a 24 crt gold friend. The glue was allowed to dry throughly and then the excess buffed off with a soft cloth. A hole went into the top and it was hung from the bottom.






And there we go all done!

New Year

Well its a new year so time try try out new presents and new things.


So, here goes, I saw a wonderful tutorial on how to make a fake leather wallet, which inspired me to make a book to hold my new nesties. MY requirements were

• fake leather look,
• magnetic strips to hold
  
• plastic to protect the cutting edges.
• I like eastern designs and as my new nestie was a fabby eastern design it was easy to see that was going to be my theme.
• at least 4 pages, which ment 3 inner and 1 for the cover.

I didnt have 3 A4 all the same, but I had some thick 120gsm, printer card, so I set too and designed my own.

Next I put the cover card through my embossing folder for a snake skin effect. Using my new cutter I make an apperture, then using a sepia ink pad I distressed the cover to bring up the texture.
I distressed a sand piece of card and putting it behind the apperature. Some die cut letters on the top completed the the outer cover.
From trimming the top and bottom to fit the embossing folder I made a couple of straps to secure the bucle and strap.



I then took one of the 3 card pieces and sewed it to the top part. the next 2 pieces were stuck together back to back and folded into a booklet. Adhered magnetic strips on the page.




I took 2 clear postcard protectors and cut the sides so that only the bottom piece remained. I used 2 brads to secure it to the pages, so it was either side.
From the brad holes I hung some charms.

A second booklet for one of my friends was made in the same way.