Hello and thanks for stopping by, Deb Riddell here with you to share a Celebrate Spring mini album created with iCraft Mixed Media Sheets, some of the new Deco Foil Designer Stencils and Deco Foil Transfer Sheets.
Celebrate Spring Mini Album With Mixed Media Sheets
I’ve always loved iCraft Mixed Media Sheets for their durability and strength regardless of the techniques I used on them so they were the perfect vehicle for constructing this little Spring mini album.
Therm O Web Supplies Used:
iCraft Mixed Media Sheets • Heavy Weight
iCraft Mixed Media Sheets • Light Weight
Deco Foil™ Swirls Stencil
Deco Foil™ Pinwheels Stencil
Deco Foil™ Abstract Circles Stencil
Deco Foil™ Transfer Gel
Deco Foil™ Adhesive Pen .34floz
Deco Foil™ Toner Sheets
Deco Foil™ Transfer Sheets • Jade
Deco Foil™ Transfer Sheets • Denim
Deco Foil™ Transfer Sheets • Champagne
Deco Foil™ Transfer Sheets • Spring Green
Deco Foil™ Transfer Sheets • Plum
Deco Foil™ Transfer Sheets • Wild Cherry
iCraft Mixed Media Adhesive 2.1 fl oz
Sticky Dots Adhesive Large Sheets
Purple Tape
Deco Foil Adhesive Pick-Up Square
Other supplies used:
Foil Laminator • 12 inch
Distress Crayons; Emboss It Pen; Archival Ink; Distress Oxide Inks; Distress Inks; Distress Spray Stain; Distress Paint; Dina Wakley Media Paint; Stickles Glitter Glue – Ranger Ink
Small Tattered Florals; Mini Detailed Butterflies; Garden Greens; Wildflowers; Flutter dies – Sizzix
Flutter stamps – Stampers Anonymous
Media Gesso – DecoArt
Fluid Matte Medium – Liquitex
Moss Stone Green Embossing Powder – Emerald Creek Craft Supplies
Crinkle Ribbon – Advantus
Assorted spring digital images – Ephemera’s Vintage Garden
Miscellaneous – white cardstock; green cardstock; paintbrush; scissors; paper trimmer; ruler; heat gun; clothespins; ball stylus; spatula; hole punch; eyelets; baby wipes; embroidery floss; large-eyed needle; heart bead
Celebrate Spring Mini Album Cover Instructions:
Cut a length of Heavy Weight Mixed Media Sheet to the desired size for your mini album cover (this cover was cut to 4 1/4″ wide by 11″ long). To make the mixed media sheet more receptive to water-based mediums, cover both sides with a coat of white gesso.
Scribble several shades of blue and green Distress Crayon onto the gessoed mixed media sheet and blend them together with your fingers. Dip your fingers into some water sprayed on your craft sheet to get the crayon colours to move and blend easily.
Keep adding more colours and blending until you are happy with the result.
Find the midpoint of your cover and mask off a section about 1″ wide for the album spine. Tape a Deco Foil Designer Stencil into place with Purple Tape (this is Abstract Circles) and add embossing ink through the stencil with an embossing pen or ink pad. Cover the stenciled design with a green embossing powder and heat set to activate.
Turn your cover over and colour the inside with Distress Oxide Inks in shades of blue and green. Spritz with water to activate the Oxide ink and repeat your colour layers as necessary until you are happy with the results.
Tape a Deco Foil Designer Stencil into place on the inside of the cover (this is Swirls) and apply Deco Foil Transfer Gel to both sides with a spatula. Allow the transfer gel to dry till clear (about one hour).
Pre-heat your foil laminator and run the album cover through with Denim Deco Foil Transfer Sheet once the transfer gel has dried. As you can see I got some foil transferring in areas where there was no transfer gel because I was impatient and didn’t wait until the gessoed and inked surface had dried completely. So this won’t happen to you, do as I say and not as I do and wait until your piece has dried thoroughly before laminating, overnight would probably be best!
Cut a piece of green cardstock to 1″ wide and adhere it to the inside center of your album cover to reinforce the spine. Punch a couple of holes on the edges of the cover and insert eyelets so you can tie on some ink dyed ribbon for your album closure.
Cut a piece of Light Weight Mixed Media Sheet in half and paint one half with diluted yellow acrylic paint and the other half with pink or orange acrylic paint. I also added a whitewash to the coloured sheets to tone the colours down a bit. Let the sheets dry thoroughly.
Die cut a couple of butterflies (these are Mini Detailed Butterflies) and some layered flowers (these are Small Tattered Florals) from the painted Light Weight Mixed Media sheet once it has dried.
Crumple up the floral die cuts, smooth them out slightly and shape them with a ball stylus and then layer them together, adhering the petals with iCraft Mixed Media Adhesive. Hold the flower petals in place with a clothespin till just about dry.
Cover Deco Foil Toner Sheet with Champagne Deco Foil Transfer Sheet and die cut the overlay piece for your Detailed Butterflies. Use Sticky Dots to adhere the foiled Toner Sheet on top of the butterflies you had die cut from the Light Weight Mixed Media sheet (or you could use PeelnStick Toner Sheets, I just didn’t have any at the time!). Set the flowers and butterflies aside for the time being, they will be added to the front cover once the album has been assembled.
Cover a piece of Heavy Weight Mixed Media Sheet with Deco Foil Transfer Gel (I used a spatula to prevent any texture from brush marks) and once it dries clear run it through your pre-heated laminator with Spring Green Deco Foil Transfer Sheet.
Die cut some greenery from the foiled Heavy Weight Mixed Media sheet and from green cardstock (these are Garden Greenery Thinlits).
Adhere the die cut greenery onto the outside back cover of your mini album, using Sticky Dots to adhere them. If you have any glue residue left on top of the die cuts, gently run your Deco Foil Adhesive Pickup Square overtop to remove it. Set the cover aside for the moment and move on to the inside pages.
Celebrate Spring Mini Album Inside Pages Instructions:
Cut several sheets of iCraft Heavyweight Mixed Media Sheets to a slightly smaller dimension than your outside cover. I cut three lengths to 4″ x 9″ to make three signatures but you can certainly add more pages if you’d like.
Paint one of the sheets front and back with white gesso and then dip and drag the gessoed sheet through puddles of green Distress Inks on your craft mat. Repeat the process until you are happy with the colours. Colour both sides of the sheet in the same manner.
Paint the second sheet with a coat of matte medium (this is Liquitex but any matte medium will do) and once the medium has dried spray or paint the sheet with a tan coloured water-based spray or stain (this is Antique Linen Distress Spray Stain). Lay a Deco Foil Designer Stencil overtop of the dried stain (this is Pinwheels) and remove the stain from the stencil with a slightly damp baby wipe. Repeat the process until you are happy with the look.
And finally, paint the third sheet with diluted pale green acrylic paint (this is Old Paper Distress Paint) front and back and let dry thoroughly.
You can now embellish your pages in any way that you would like; use die cuts, vintage images, ephemera, photographs, found objects – whatever strikes your fancy! Here are a few ideas to get you started, begin with some spring-themed vintage images (these are courtesy of Ephemera’s Vintage Garden) printed onto cardstock.
Create a pocket with one of the printed images, size a journaling tag to fit in it and add some Wildflower foiled die cuts behind it (Jade, Plum and Wild Cherry Deco Foil on Deco Foil Toner Sheet). Add some of the same Deco Foil colours to the pocket and tag here and thereby adding Deco Foil Adhesive with the pen and burnishing the foils on with a soft cloth.
Embellish a page with Flutter butterflies stamped onto Deco Foil Toner Sheet covered with Champagne Deco Foil and then die cut with the coordinating dies.
Add Denim Deco Foil around the edges of a page with the help of the Deco Foil Adhesive Pen and adhere an envelope in the center that has a secret journaling spot hidden inside. The possibilities are endless, just have fun!
After you’ve embellished your pages as desired, sew them into the cover with a pamphlet stitch and some embroidery floss (click here for an easy pamphlet stitch tutorial). If desired, add a bead to the tails of embroidery floss to decorate the spine of your mini album.
Once the signatures are sewn into place, adhere the foiled butterflies and Light Weight Mixed Media sheet flowers to the front of your mini album with iCraft Mixed Media Adhesive.
Your Celebrate Spring mini album is done! Here are a few more pics of the completed album.
Hope that you’ve enjoyed seeing how it came together and that you’ve been inspired to make a spring mini album of your own. It’s easy and fun with Therm O Web’s iCraft Mixed Media sheets, Deco Foil Designer Stencils and Deco Foil Transfer Sheets. Happy crafting everyone and think Spring!
Deb xo
March is National Craft Month and National Quilting Month and we want to offer you a chance to win some fun supplies!
We have two prizes to give away this week…one is perfect for the fabric crafter and the other the paper crafter!
Tune in tomorrow to see what our fabric giveaway is this week for National Craft & Quilting Month!
Our paper prize has lots of good things! Sizzix paper pad, coloring pad and stamps, Photo Paper Play Hoppy Easter paper kit, DCWV White Foil Paper Pad, Deco Foil Transfer Sheets, Adhesive Pen and our NEW Designer Stencil plus 3D Foam Squares and our favorite Mini Tape Runner!
Follow the Rafflecopter steps to get yourself entered to win! We’ll pick two winners to send these goodies out to!
