My First Tutorial!

Welcome to my very first stamp tutorial!  I took over 50 pictures during the 2-day process of making this rubber stamp binder, but I narrowed it down to only 29.  lol  Enjoy!

Since Wendy's Studio 490 stamp sets are so large, I found some 20 x 30 sheets of chipboard at Dick's online, and cut one down to two pieces 12-3/4" x 6".  I wanted my colors to show true, so I covered both front & back covers with 2 coats of gesso.

Once completely dry, I used some low tack tape to mark off sections.

I lightly inked on four colors (Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean, Broken China, & Chipped Sapphire), starting with the lightest color.

After adding all four colors, I misted with water (the more you mist, the more the colors will blend & run).

I wanted them to run alot, so I added lots of water.  So much, that I went back and added more colors, re-misted, and dried.

Oops!  Added so much color, that not only did the water misting splatter the ink onto my white area, it also bled through under my tissue tape border.  I added two more coats of gesso and left it all to dry overnight.  I had so much ink on them this morning, that I still had to dry them with my heat gun!  lol

Now to decorating them ... I used some great (apropos) stamps from the Rubber Stamp Art set.  *while creating the link for that set on Simon Says Stamp's website, I put the title in the search bar, and 37 pages of products came up!  haha  Note to self ... search with set numbers from now on.*

I added some dots using Coffee Archival ink and Seriously Art.  I had a tough time finding a link for this set--finally found it on the Stamper's Anonymous site, and it's set #LCS034.

I used Wendy's white embossing past and the Wildflowers & A Bird stencil.  After drying with my heat gun, I flipped the stencil over and made another flower.  *IMPORTANT--when using embossing pastes with your stencils, remember to clean them with warm water & mild soap immediately after use*

I added some black embossing paste with the Everyday Words stencil.

When all the pastes were completely dry, I colored the flowers with Distress markers:  Crushed Olive, Milled Lavender & Dusty Concord.

I thought I needed more in the background, so I added some script text from the Live and Make Art (LCS038) set with Olive Archival ink.

I added some black dots by placing the stencil back over the flower and covering up the openings in the stencil that I didn't want inked.

Now for some fun!  I've been wanting to try this technique of coloring the embossing paste that Wendy had on her blog here.

Since it's for the covers of a book that'll get knocked around a bit, I used Archival ink instead of Distress cause I thought it might be tougher.

Mix it up well ...

tape down the stencil when covering a large area ...

and schmeer away!

Love it!

I added some Scattered Straw and Vintage Photo around the edges and lightly swiped on the surface.

For the insides of the covers, I used much more color on the top sections because I didn't want any stamping, and instead of embossing paste, I just used Crushed Olive Distress ink.

The holes for Wendy's pages are very large, so I punched several times with my Crop-a-dile.

Then I used a thin file to clean up the holes better.

The flowers looked a little lost, so I outlined them heavily with my black journaling pen, and doodled around the edges.

I also used a white Gelly Roll pen over the words and image from this stamp to make them stand out more.

I decided to use some 3" binder rings I found at Office Depot.  They'e huge, but now I can hold 11 pages in each binder instead of only 7 with the 2" rings.  I also put some Wonder Tape between the sections and added a Night of Navy (Stampin' Up!) grosgrain ribbon and knotted.

OK, so it only took me about 45 minutes to write/edit this tutorial, so I think I might do more.  I hope you enjoyed it and try some of these techniques.

Wendy Vecchi Stamp Book Covers

I have lots of stamps ... Stampin' Up!, Tim Holtz, Unity, Technique Tuesday, clear mounts, but some of my most favorite are my Wendy Vecchi Studio 490 stamps from Stampers Anonymous (who also makes Tim's stamps).  I love her stamps and products so much that I belong to the Everything Wendy Vecchi Yahoo Group (click here to join), where we share our art, ideas, techniques, Wendy herself, games, prizes and more!  The list is run by Lori Hassler, who's a very talented, funny lady, and she's always coming up with challenges for us and different ways for us to get our hands on all this goodness.  As you can see from the pic, I'm quite a fan ... 35 sets, and I've got more on the way!  Ssssshh!  *blush*

I first met Wendy when I was going on my 2nd Tim Holtz cruise, which was to Mexico.  I remember that I was disappointed when he first announced that she'd be his guest designer on the cruise.  I'd never heard of her before, and I assumed we were getting gypped out of some classes with Tim.  WRONG!  We got almost double the classes we normally got, and I was introduced (I like to think I "saw the light") to an adorable, creative goddess!  Dare I say, I loved her projects even more than Tim's!  Shut up!  lol

So began my love affair with Wendy Vecchi.  Mario (Tim's partner & business manager) always had his little shop of goodness on the cruises, and he was selling Wendy's stamps and books too, so my addiction began.

Her stamps come mounted on long pages with scalloped edges (sooooo Wendy), and you can create binders for them by purchasing the clear acrylic covers that you can decorate yourself.  Well, clear acrylic kind of intimidates me--I'm too anal for them.  I'd always be worrying about seeing the back of what's adhered to the front, and I'd be trying to cover it up--I fear it'd be a creative nightmare for me.  Wendy ... how about some Arts Parts covers for your stamp sets?  Huh?!

I decided to make my own using chipboard.  The only problem is, the size.  Her pages are about 12-1/2" long, and it's hard to find chipboard bigger than 12x12.  I decorated the covers for my first book by stealing the back cover of a pad of 11x14 watercolor paper.

I found some SB paper someone gave me that had a slight texture to it, and Distressed away using my Distress Inks.

I wanted the insides to be different, so I used some more lightly textured paper to ink on.

I had some colored 2" binder rings, so I popped these yellow ones on and I could fit 7 pages in my new binder!  Only problem ... by the time I finished this book, I had about 9 more pages of stamps waiting.

I made that first book over 2 years ago, and my friend, Andrea, was sweet enough to rip off the back page of her 11x14 watercolor pad, so I was finally able to start working on book #2.

I love this one even more!  I made a base on the chipboard using some 7 Gypsies tissue paper.  I stamped & clear embossed the W (for Wendy, of course), and then inked away.  The clear embossing resisted the ink so the beautiful kraft color of the tissue remained.  After doing the W on this book, I went back to my first book and embossed the silver W on that one.

Sidenote--I have a HUGE jar of Stampin' Up! clear embossing powder that's got to be about 10 years old.  During a class one day, one of my students accidentally dumped some leftover white into the big jar of clear, so I get little white speckles in my clear.  I kind of like it, so I use it on my grungier projects.  I also wanted to draw around the W with a white gel pen, but none of the 8 I owned wanted to cooperate (which sparked a big discussion on my Yahoo groups, thanks to me).  I ended up using Tim's White Picket Fence Distress Marker ... looked very disappointing at first, but then the white just pops up after a few seconds ... it's amazing.

I used some SU cardstock for the bottom part and stamped the grungy stripes from the It's More Flower Art set and then embossed Make Art from the All About Art set with black embossing powder.  I inked the edges with one of my favorite colors, Vintage Photo.

For the inside, I just blended some Distress inks together, misted with water and crumpled.  After flattening it back out and drying, I hit the high points with more Vintage Photo and adhered by running it through my Xyron Creative Station.  The top is plain black SU cardstock with a washee tape border between them.

I'm nervous about putting any Art Parts, or metal on my books, because I worry about the items being knocked off when I pull the books on/off the shelf.  

I'm currently working on book #3, and with this one comes a tutorial!  My first!  There's been some overnight drying time involved already, so I hope to finish by tonight, but definitely by tomorrow, so come back and check it out!

June Tim Tag

June 27th.  June twenty-seventh.  Wasn't I supposed to do something?  Hmmmm.  OK, July is next week.  July 1st new Tim tag ... OMG!  I never posted my June tag!  Whew!  Almost missed out on my chance of winning on Tim's blog!  What a shame that'd be, cause I just love, Love, LOVE this tag!  I don't know if it's the dragonfly again, or all the colors, but I love it!

My friend, Grace, came over again to create with me.  We just dumped the container of Tim's Distress Markers between us and went crazy.  I was sooo outside my comfort zone ..; I usually use the same colors.  I didn't even look at half the color names cause I was having so much fun!  And, the speckles were the perfect finishing touch.  You can see Tim's June tag here.

I love the look of torn paper, so I also tore the bottom edge of the tag.  Just thought it needed it.

Although Tim didn't put a ribbon on his tag, we colored some Crinkle Ribbon and added them to ours.  I used some Gold Distress Stain to mine, but it doesn't show up much in the pictures.

Each month, it's getting more & more fun to make these tags!  I'm so glad he changed them to monthly tags.  The last 3 months are my favorites.  I'm going to start hanging them around my classroom here so I can show them off as well as get inspired by them.