Tando Mini Book Tutorial

Hi everyone, Nikki, from Addicted to Art, here today to share our mid challenge project tutoral post. This month's challenge is all about using Sentiments on our projects and for the challenge I shared this large canvas. (You can see the post here.)

Today I am sharing the same process but on a much smaller scale - this time to decorate 2 mini books - each 6 x 6 cm. These pre cut greyboard books are available from Tando Creative Ltd (here).

The greyboard base consists of two 6cm square pieces of greyboard and one 6 x 1.5cm for the spine. 

Here I have them laid out and painted:

To create my cover, which also joins the spine to the 2 outer covers I cut some kraft card - adding 8mm for the spaces between the spine and the covers. So my card is 6+6+1.5+0.8 = 14.3cm by 6 cm and I score at 6cm from each end. 

Now the fun bit! This is the same process I used on the canvas - just on a larger scale. Firstly randomly adhere scraps of paper / thin card before adding a little more texture through a stencil with texture paste.

Once dry I reached for my paints - selecting Dina Wakley Media Fluid Acrylics for their vibrancy. I did each book slightly difference to give a subtly different end result.

For one I began with white paint and covered quite a bit of it - but not all and for the other - black paint.

I then built up colours - working in patches of colour - drying in between. Mostly I used my finger, but used a brush to ensure I reached the crevices of the texture paste.

A bit of pink!

Blue and turquoise....

Green....

You can see how I left patches of the black showing. With the black base the pink is less vibrant but the green pops a little more.

Once dry, I dry brushed over the entire surface with white chalk paint...

On this small project I added this fairly evenly all over - but on the canvas I highlighted the textured areas more with my dry brushing.

Finally I adhered these covers to the pre painted greyboard - sorry forgot the photos at this point. I lightly sand the edges so that the covers sort of merge with the greyboard base and then added gold paint around the edge with my finger.

For each book I selected some Dina Wakley Collage words and adhered with matt medium. On the canvas I stamped (in archival) my words on tissue paper before adding them.

A few close ups to finish!

Thanks for getting this far! Don't forget our Get Sentimental challenge runs until the 2nd August and we would love to see you designs.

Nikki

xxx

Friday's Guest is ................

Hi Everyone, it's Friday and special guest day and we have the lovely lady who is sponsoring our challenge this month with a decorated version of the kit she is offering as the winning prize, it shows you how it can look once painted and altered. I'll leave it up to her to introduce herself.

**********************

Hi I'm Di Oliver and I co-own Tando Creative Limited with my husband Tony.  I was so excited to be asked to be a guest designer on A Vintage Journey, I rarely craft these days and it gave me an ideal opportunity to sit down and get painty.

We have recently released a new Art Journal Starter Kit which includes all the elements needed to sew your own journal together so it is truly handmade.  I decided to put together one of these kits myself and I had loads of fun decorating the covers.

I have used supplies from the DecoArt media line, firstly using the crackle paste liberally through a stencil over the cover and also just applying with a palette knife around the edges.  The Crackle Paste gives really lovely deep crackles if it is applied thickly.

For the spine covering I glued screwed up tissue paper and left it all to dry.

Using a combination of Prussian Blue Hue, Primary Magenta and Burnt Umber I applied various washes to the covers.  I then decorated one of the Tando grids and a word Create by simply painting white and stamping with a crackle stamp.  I then applied washes to the Butterfly and stamped with a brown archival ink pad.

I finished off with ribbons and glued the journal together.

**************************

Wow Di, that looks so special with all the texture and embellishing, I'm sure our lucky winner this month will be over the moon with their prize and it's great to see some wonderful inspiration for them in your post. Thank you so much for sharing this fabulous journal and taking time out of your extremely busy schedule to create this for us, I know it's been a very hectic few months for you.

For those of you who do not know Di or Tando Creative she produces the amazing substrates from greyboard and MDF which are all available on her website (see link above), if you're looking for project substrates or embellishments her shop is well worth a visit and we are so lucky that she is sponsoring us this month.

***********************

So I'm sure this beauty will inspire you to getting 'cracking' and enter a project for the challenge that the fabulous Alison is hosting this month and if you're one of the gorgeous entries already submitted thanks so much for joining us.

Have a wonderful weekend.

hugs Brenda, Di and the Creative Guides. xxx