With Heart and Soul

Hello and welcome! It is the first of the month and so time to share my project for the Mini Album Makers Challenge.

Today I am sharing a small wraparound mini album using a very simple construction and which over the years has always been a favourite.

The mini album has been made from cardstock but has a crackled painted front ......

..... which gives the cardstock a really old feel.

Lockdown has been a wonderful opportunity to learn new skills and I really enjoyed at two hour online workshop with Seth Apter last month where I learnt about some new ideas for mixed media collage. So the inside of the little book has a totally new take on collage embellishment. I used Gel Plate papers for my background and have decorated with stamps, washi tape, text paper, and rub ons.

Here is how it came together:

I took a piece of A4 cardstock and cut two strips 2¾" deep. I then scored at 3", 6" and 9".

The two strips were joined in the middle. It really doesn't matter how many pieces you join as long as you have an even number.

I went with six folded pages.

I then started building up my pages, first by covering each page with prints from a gel print session ...

 ... and then adding text paper and washi tape.

A stamping layer came next.....

.... and finally a layer of rub ons (which I may say after Seth's class I have fallen in love with all over again!)

I cut a cover from the same cardstock as the book 9½" x 2¾" and scored at 3", 3½", 6½" and 7". This gave me a suitable spine for my pages, but you would need to adjust this if you have more pages.

The cover was painted on both sides with PaperArtsy Fresco Chalk Acrylic (Byzantium) and then when dry I used a pallette knife to apply DecoArt Crackle Paint. It is quite randomly added but dries very well!

I then glued the book to the cover as shown above. I had made a bit of a mess of the painting on the flap so added a little collage to hide it!

The front flap was decorated using a collage created in the same way as the inside ....

..... and I added a small wooden plate on the spine, capturing the ribbon under both the plate and the collage on the front of the book.

As always thank you for joining me and do hop on over to the Mini Album Makers Challenge blog to be inspired by the rest of the makes from the Design Team.

Jennie x