Guest Designer Frieda Oxenham

Time to start thinking about gifts and as we all know hand-made ones are the best. So here is my suggestion:

1.     On an A3 sheet (11.7 x 16.5”) and using a permanent black permanent marker outline patterns onto the page with a selection of your favourite stencils. I used the large stencil of the April 2020 StencilClub, B stencil of the April 2023 Club, stencil 1 of the November 2022 Club, large stencil from the June 2023 Club, the large stencil from the March 2021 club, as well as stencils ATC Mix Up Kerr, Crazy Dazey, MB CM Patterns 2021, ATC Mix Up 1, Verdant Moon, Straight Stems, Curvy Stems, and Buildings. Finally I used Large Bubbles to fill in any empty spaces between patterns. 

2.     Colour in the patterns. I used permanent paint markers, mainly Posca ones.

3.     Now fold the page to make it into a booklet. It helps to use a bone folder to make the folds nice and sharp. First fold the page in half along its longest length.

Unfold and fold width wise. Keep the page folded and fold one edge to the last fold you made. Do the same for the other side. Unfold the previous two folds but keep the first width wise fold folded. Cut from that fold to the next fold. Open up the sheet that now has a slit in the middle and refold it to the first fold you made. Pull the sides away from each other and the booklet will emerge.

If this all sounds confusing check it out on YouTube where there are many videos showing the process.

4.     Colour in the background of the pages. If you want to have the same colour background for all the spreads in your booklet you can do this before the folding, but I alternated between silver and black as my background so did the colouring after the folding.

5.     I rather enjoyed the peaceful process of colouring and folding so made another booklet using a red background for all the spreads using the stencils as in step 1.

6.     I then repeated the process using a smaller A4 sheet (8.3 x 11.7”) and made a selection from my smaller 6 x 6” stencils to use with a blue background.

I enjoyed making these booklets very much and expect that I will make a lot more of them. Using different stencils and/or background colours makes them all look very different as would using different colouring media such as watercolour.

© Frieda Oxenham 2023