Special Delivery by france papillon

Hi all!

I'm France (from Belgium) and i'm so excited to be here with you! 

Thank you Jennie and Emma for adopting me as a new member of the Artistic Stamper family. 

I hope i'll do you proud!

For my first offering as guest designer, i hand made one of my favorite toys: an art journal.

When i started working on this project, all i came up with, was this little fellow: a tiny mini journal that ended up being an embellishment on a bigger one.

To make it, i ripped water color paper (200gr) to the wanted size: 3,5 x 4,8 cm. Out of a packaging cardboard, i cut what would be the cover: 3,6 x 6 cm (spine: 9,9mm). 

I added color to the cover using the two layered Verdigris Patina by Pébéo and added Vintage Photo Distress Ink on the edges.

To give the paper a vintage look, i colorized it with Vintage Photo Distress ink and sprayed some water. I randomly added some stamping with the 'Carte Postale' stamp set with Vintage Photo Distress ink and the 'Dance Dictionary Background' with Black Archival ink. Once dry, i assembled the pages in 3 signatures and sew them together with a coptic binding.

Using the same 'Carte Postale' stamp set, i added some stamping on the cover with Black Archival ink.

Adding light touches of embossing ink on the edges with a sponge allowed me to add accents of Weathered Wood Distress Embossing powder.

 I glued the first and the last page of the inside pages to the front and back cover and added an eyelet so that i could place a chain. I now had a very fun but very small journal. But he needed a bigger brother:

I opened up an empty box of pasta, covered it with gesso and added gommed kraft to reinforce the edges.

Once dried, i gave it the same Verdegris Patina treatment as his little brother, but with a rougher finish.

I covered it with Tim Holtz Tissue Wrap, applying the glue to the paper and not to the cover, to make sure the patina would stay in place.

I dressed up the inside using Kraft Cardstock and linen canvas, then filled it with the same water color paper i used for the mini journal, sewing the signatures to the spine.

I prepared several plaster strips by dipping them into water, laying them flat to dry and then colorizing them with Sepia and Tobacco Colorex and Vintage Photo Distress ink. I printed a photo from my dad when he was 4 (love that photo!!), added some stamping to it with the 'Carte Postale' stamp set inVintage Photo and Black Soot Distress ink and glued it to black Cardstock. 

As fastener, i glued a coil with Matte accents to the cover and embellished it with a button. The 'Special Delivery' was stampend on Smoothy paper with Black Archival ink and colorized with Vintage Photo Distress ink.

I added an eyelet to the back cover, so that i could slip a piece of Tim Holtz Crinkle Ribbon through the it and attach it to the coil on the front cover.

To keep the small journal closed, i added a closed strip that has the same 'Special Delivery' stamping as the front, but stamped with Sepia Archival ink.

Wishing you all a fantastic end of the week,

be back soon with more Artistic Stamper fun!!

xx

france