Art is Nature Notebook

Hello again,

I always like to have a notebook by my side, don't you? Otherwise, where would we write down our Stash Wishlist! I also think that if you decorate them yourself, they make useful little gifts for crafty buddies.

When I spotted this acrylic covered notepad in my local pound store, it immediately made me think of the possibilities with alcohol inks. I've been a bit techniquey today because I thought I would experiment and see how it would work if I stamped my design with StazOn on one side, and then used alcohol inks on the other, and then bleached out the alcohol ink on the leaves, and filled them back in with colour. You could use either Cut 'N Dry Nibs dipped in Alcohol Ink Blending Solution to remove the colour, or one of the Ranger Fillable Pens, then put the colour back in by using green alcohol ink to accent the leaves, using the same method. Using the reverse of the acrylic means you don't have to worry about the StazOn bleeding. This particular notebook had a blank first page, and then lined pages, so if you wanted you could have a double layered design, with some decoration on the front page, showing through the stamped and alcohol inked acrylic cover.

I decided not to use any 3d embellishment because my notebooks take quite a bashing, on my craft table and in my handbag, so I wanted it to be resilient. I added metal photo corners partly to reinforce it, but also to slightly 'frame' my design.

What you will need:-

Art is Nature stamp set
Alcohol Inks Sunset Orange, Red Pepper, Sunshine Yellow, Watermelon, Shell Pink, Lettuce
Alcohol Ink Pen or Cut 'N Dry Nibs
Alcohol Ink Blending Solution, felts, and Applicator Tool
StazOn Jet Black
Fibres

A6 Acrylic Cover Notebook
Metal Photo Corners

How to do it:-

1. Open out the cover and apply the alcohol inks to the reverse: add a couple of drops each of the Orange, Red Pepper, Yellow, Watermelon, and Pink, so that they are not touching each other on the felt applicator pad. Dab, moving the direction of the tool around as you go. Then add a couple of drops of the blending solution to the tool and do the same again. I kept checking by closing the book again so I could see the colours reflected against the white background, until I was happy with the intensity of the colours, so you may want to apply more. Apply colour to the back cover in the same way. I've shown a picture here of the back cover with alcohol inks on and I also took the cover off and popped it through the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder, which is another thing you could experiment with!

2. Stamp a selection of the Art is Nature stamps on the front of the acrylic cover as shown, using the Black StazOn.

3. Turn the cover over again so the alcohol inked side is facing you, and use the re-fillable pen filled with blending solution to bleach out the colour of the leaves. Have a piece of scrap paper or tissue by your side and keep cleaning off the tip.

4. Use another re-fillable pen filled with Lettuce to add the colour of the leaves back in.

5. To finish, add metal photo corners and fibres, as shown.

I hope you like this little project. It was a bit of an experiment for me and I felt these bold and striking stamps worked really well. I think it would also work well though, with many of Jennie's other stamps, as I found it was easier than I thought to remove the colour and add it back in to create detail.

Hope you enjoyed it, and thanks for looking!

Lucy