Autumn Book Love!

Heavens above it is now October!

Hello and welcome to you all!

As it is the first of the month I am sharing my monthly mini album with you today as part of the creative team at Mini Album Makers.  Hopefully my stitched star book will inspire you take take part but as always there's loads more inspiration from my fabulous teamies HERE on the blog.

 We have had such a wonderful summer even here in the North that those wonderful relaxed, unhurried, languid days seem to have gone on for ever and it is really only in the last couple of weeks that it is feeling more Autumnul both in the weather and the garden. I adore the colours of Autumn so today I am celebrating the colours I love in a small book of Autumn prose and sayings. 

Over the last ten years or so I have collected quite a few "how to" mini album books and this one by Sue Roddis is one of my favourites. For a long while I have wanted to make her stitched star book and so I decided to just "go for it" for this months project.  There is not much of a "how to" make the book in this post as I have made the book as per Sue's instructions but I can share how I inked the insides and made the cluster on the cover




But before that I shall share a few pictures of the finished book.

Before I started the pages inside my book I gathered together all my Autumn stamps and stencils and Alison's (aka Butterfly at Words and Pictures) wonderful Autumnul sayings stamp set by PaperArtsy.

I used ordinary weight cardstock as it still had to fold inside the star book. Each page was given a coating of chalk paint to give it a bit of "tooth" for the next step.

 I then "squished" Distress Inks onto my craft mat and lightly pulled off the colour onto the paper. I wanted a suggestion of colour so dabbed a lot of the ink off whilst drying with the heat gun. I have used Aged Mahogany, Seedless Preserves, Rusty Hinge and Spiced Marmalade.

After stamping with Black Archival Ink I painted my autumn elements with the same Distress Inks.

I left everything to dry well overnight before folding the pages and inserting them into the book.

And now to the front and back covers ......

I cut two pieces of board to fit my book and painted them first with Mulled Wine Chalk Paint before adding a coat of DecoArt Weathered Wood and a final coat of Chalk Acrylic Paint. I wanted something rusty and worn!

The cluster was made from a selection of paper leaves and flowers and these cheap plastic looking frosted berries.

You can see from the back that I just twisted everything together to make a spray that would sit fairly flat.

Everything then got two coats of gesso.

Once the gesso had dried well (this does take a little time) I then sprayed everything with a lot of water and dropped PaperArtsy Infusions here and there. Keep on spraying with water until you get the coverage and colour you want. The gesso base allows you to do this.

This is one of my favourite techniques and is a great way to use up embellishments you don't like!

Finally I painted some MDF letters. I find the easiest way of doing this is to stick them onto a piece of masking tape so they don't keep jumping around!

The covers were stuck onto the front of the book along with a "blousy" piece of silk ribbon which I dyed with Seedless Preserves and Rusty Hinge Distress Ink ....... and yes I had hands to match for days!

Thank you so much for joining me for this rather long post but I hope it inspires you to make a mini album this month and join us in our challenge at Mini Album Makers.

Happy crafting!

Jennie x