Mini Album Makers December Challenge

Hello Friends

It is time for a new challenge at Mini Album Makers, where as always, the theme is any form of handmade mini albums, scrapbooks, journals and book arts as long as they are completed works.

I needed to say thank you to some lovely people who have been a huge support over the last couple of months, so I used Eileen Hull's fabulous Passport Die (Sizzix 660331) to create some personal journals for each of them, and I based them on things I knew they liked.

I thought I would just explain, briefly, the finish on the journals and then show you one in more detail.  I used a dream catcher theme on three of the journals, using Seth Apter's fabulous Drip Drop die, which reminds me of a dream catcher!

1)  Top left was simply painted with blue paint from my stash and some lovely design paper was added to the cover and the signatures inside.

2) Top right was painted in various warm colours, using a brayer to layer up the colours.  The dream catcher was given a coat of crackle paste and then coloured with gold tone gilding wax.

3)  Bottom left was painted with black acrylic paint and I added a picture I found on the internet, depicting a collie dog.  The lady in questions loves collies.

4)  Bottom right was painted with purple acrylic paint, the covers were embossed with an embossing folder and then silver gilding wax was rubbed gently all over.  The dream catcher element was painted in crackle paint before being coated generously with gilding was.  The 'X' in the centre is filled with beautiful purple beads.

5)  I always like to include charms on my handmade journals and each is attached with one of Tim Holtz Idea-ology clips.  The dream catcher charms were purchased in kit form from that very well know auction site.

Now, just a few steps for those who like to see the process.

I die cut the covers and the spine and ran them through an embossing folder (Tim Holtz flourish), painted them with some purple acrylic paint and then highlighted the embossing with some gilding wax (Pebeo).

I die cut some extra covers in thin card, to line the inside of the covers.  I trimmed these slightly to give a neat finish inside.

Eileen's die also cuts the signature covers, I cut three of these and decorated them with die cuts.  I also added an envelope pocket (in the same matching card) to the inside back of the journal.  The advantage of this is that it covers up the knot for the elastic closure on the journals.  The signature inserts were also cut using the die and I trimmed these down to fit inside the signature covers.

As it happens, our wonderful Sponsor this month is none other than Eileen Hull herself and she is offering one lucky winner, one of her journal dies.  This is one of Eileen's Bigz XL dies (Sizzix 658982 - Mini Album)

Website - http://www.eileenhull.com/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/eileenhulldesigns/
Eileen Hull Facebook Fan Club - https://www.facebook.com/groups/278232919290545/
Shop - https://www.etsy.com/shop/EileenHull?ref=pr_shop_more

So, to be in with a chance of winning this wonderful die, I hope you will join us at Mini Album Makers this month, you can find all the details and rules HERE.

As always, thanks for your visit, I hope to see you again soon!

Hugs, Anne xxx

Eileen Hull and Crescent collaboration

Hello Everyone!

Eileen Hull and Crescent are collaborating all this month and the team has had the pleasure of working with Crescent RENDЯ Paper and also Crescent Photo Mat Art Board.  Today I am sharing a project made using the paper and also Eileen Hull's 
mat board (Sizzix 656491) to create a mini album.

Crescent developed the RENDЯ Paper so that stamps, sprays, paints, inks and other mediums can be used with no leakage onto the other side.  This makes it ideal for use
 in journalling.  For my project today I used Paper Artsy paints and am pleased to 
say that none of it bled through.

I'll take you through some of the steps I took to make this album.

I started by cutting Eileen Hull's Mini Album die (Sizzix 658982) from mat 
board and the album pages were cut using the same die and the
RENDЯ Paper.

Each of the pages and the album cover itself have been painted in exactly the same
way.  I used a brayer to apply the paint - first I used the PaperArtsy Stone, then 
the Glass Blue and finally the Blue Oyster.  The three colours give wonderful 
coverage.  As you can see above, there is no leakage onto the other side of 
the RENDЯ Paper.  However, since I wanted both sides to look the same, each 
page was painted in the same way on each side.

Here are some of the finished inside pages.  I did cut some more sets of pages so 
that I could create some pockets and smaller pages.

To cut the flowers, I used Eileen Hull's new Romance Flower die (Sizzix 661110) and the RENDЯ Paper. The flowers were coloured in Distress Spray Stain 
(Tumbled Glass) and the edges were painted with DecoArt Media Fluid 
Acrylic in Titanium White.

To finish off the project I used some Tim Holtz die cuts that were left over from another project (come back next week if you want to see that one).

To finish off, I added some Tim Holtz Remnant Rubs and put the album together, with 
some red elastic bands.  I love this method of constructing the album as it gives you the opportunity to add more pages as and when you need them.

Thanks so much for looking, I hope you will come back next week to see another 
Eileen Hull project and also visit Eileen's blog to see what my teamies have made too.

Hugs, Anne xx