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!