Hi Everyone! My name is Brigitta Budahazi, I am a scrapbook-teacher from Hungary and I am super excited to be a contributor here on StencilGirl Talk Blog as a Guest Designer. I hope you will like my project.
In this post I will show you how I made this mixed media album, covered with self-made patterned linen, using Journal Words Stencil designed by Traci Bautista. I decorated the stenciled cover with bead embroidery technique which took an enormous amount of time but the result is absolutely worth it, don’t you think?).
Inside, using Traci’s Love Collage Stencil. I painted the pages with white acrylic, and I placed cardboard cutouts as page titles using the same Journal Words stencil again.
I really enjoyed the whole process itself! I really love how Traci designed the shape of these words. Originally the shape and the meaning of this bunch of words inspired me to create this album.
Finally I have this nice mixed media album, which will become an AAM album in the coming future. I have planned that I will fill it with 2" x 2” self-portraits and with some journaling, inspired by the words of this beautiful stencil. So let’s see how I’ve
put this together.
1. I started with a piece of whitened linen. I laid down Journal Words stencil and cover the surface with Pentart Fabric paint in black color. You can use any fabric paint range. Pentart is a brandname of the collection of products made by a Hungarian manufacturer of creative chemicals, Pentacolor. I used Pentart products for this project.
2. I put on one layer of paint and let it dry. After drying the painted motives should be fixed by ironing through an ironing paper.
3. I repeated the first 2 steps with another piece of linen. Then it was time to cover two sets of chipboard pieces for the album. Here I would like to mention one of my Hungarian scrapmates,Tamara Tihany, who shared with me this fabric-covered album making technique in our last Hungarian scrapbook camp. For this album I used 2 sets of a 1”x6” and a 6”x6” size chipboard pieces. I’ve made two holes on the 1” piece before I wrapped them with the fabric. I put a thick layer of polyester batting between the fabric and the chipboard piece, but only on the cover side of the chipboard. I used a strong type double tape to fix the fabric completely. I repeated this step with the other set of the chipboard pieces too. Then the back of the two covers gets a piece of paper. You can use a paper of your choice, here I used craft background paper.
4. Using an old type of eyelet-setter set, I put eyelets in the holes of the covers.
5. I was so glad to see how well the self-patterned fabric covers turned out, but at this point, I felt, I need something more special for the cover of this book: a special adding which will draw the attention, an attractive extra thing, a contrasting detail, something like that. I chose 5 shades of beads and sew them onto the cover. I chose the word "wonder” and embroidered it with the beads, making a gradient shade from white to antique gold. Instead of sewing thread, I recommend fishing line or those special threads for beading. You need to pull each stitch tight and you may have to untie knots as well – with a flexible thing such fishing lines it will be much easier.
6. For the titles of the pages I used the same Journaling Words stencil. Laying backwards on black background papers I traced the words separately with a white gel pen. Then I cut out by the lines using scissors and my favorite craft knife.
7. Then – continuing the use of gold color – I colored the cover of the cutout words with gold shade of Pentart Wax paste. I used a round sponge "brush” to get some metallic-like, distressed look.
8. As the next step, I decorated the inside pages. I chose white acrylic paint from Pentart. Using the Love Collage Stencil I painted several variations from its great pattern. I really enjoyed this step--just one stencil but look, how many possibilities.
9. Then using leftover fabric pieces, self-made embellishments (the titles), some scrap paper pieces (StudioCalico – Classic Calico Paper Pad) I have built up the inside pages. You can see all of the pages and the cover of the finished album, on the following photographs. I hope you get inspired to try these techniques and create your own fantastic albums! :)
Thank you so much for the opportunity. I am so glad and proud that I could share my tips with you, here on StencilGirlTalk. I would be happy to answer any questions you might have regarding this project.
Hello, from Hungary,
Brigitta Budahazi aka Gigi :)
