Getting mucky fingers….

Ahhh, who can resist Paperchase?  Not me, that’s for sure.  Yesterday I had to go in to town for some last minute birthday shopping for Jamie (he’ll be a whole 5 years old at the weekend!). Inevitably I ended up popping into Paperchase, and found this…

Boring huh?  But with oh so many possibilities. It’s an A4 (which you may have guessed) sketch book. Grey board covers and fabric bound.  Simple with a simple price tag - £5.50!  Wouldn’t this make a great Art Journal? I thought so, and as I’m off on one of Dyan’s Beginners Art Journal courses at the end of this month, I just had to.

Well, as Chris was away last night I sat up until midnight doing “something” with that cover.  I have to stress I hadn’t intended to stay up that late, I was ready to go to bed at eight o’clock, but I lost track of time once my fingers got stuck in pots of gel medium, gesso and paint, not to mention sprayed on.

Front cover ,

And the back cover….

 

 

I used 7 Gypsies patterned paper for the back cover, and cosmo cricket for the front, then smeared them with a rangers paint dabber in espresso and given them a quick spray with some “Smooch” (I think that’s what it’s called – it was in a gogo kit recently).

I then cover the edges and the spine, not that I didn’t mind the purple fabric binding, with 7 Gypsies gaffer tapes, which were then given the paint treatment to mucky them up a bit.

The front cover stamp is from Sir Tim, and the circle have been made using gesso and a glue stick lid. I then stencilled spots on using Studio paints in dash of red and sable brown.  To finish I applied some crafty individuals butterflies and words from a 7 gypsies sticker sheet.

I am in love with this book, and the feeling and smell of gel medium.

Now all I need to Chris to be away again so I can spend the evening creating some background pages!!