New Family Member

If you've been reading my blog for a while, then you will remember that my daughter's horse died suddenly in January. It was such a heartbreaking event for our family. My daughter was given a sweet horse on Sunday and yesterday we brought him home. His name is Shiloh and although he needs much training, he is eager to please and just a real sweetie pie. He has one blue eye and one brown eye- how is that for unique?! Our daughter is happy as a clam in the ocean with her new best friend. And he is just as smitten with her! Meet Shiloh...

All right, this boy needs lots of training so I am on my way to the barn for more lead training. See you soon!

Blessings!

Barb

Faux Hand tooled Leather Mini Book

I had to wait for my flower to dry so I could finish up my faux hand tooled leather mini book :-). I tied raffia to the coils- it just seemed to be a good touch ;-).

The flower was die cut and I used the side that my cutting plate left impressions in. After you use your cutting plates for a while, all the cut impressions in the cutting plate will leave those impressions on the wrong side of your die cut. This is good for those times that you actually want that texture, lol! I very lightly brushed my sponge with Night of Navy ink on it over the flower to bring out the texture that was left from my cutting plate. I coated the flower and the leaves with Crystal Effects- which is what I had to wait for to dry. I got impatient though and finished it with my heat tool. The Crystal Effects blistered just a bit, but I kind of like the look of that :-).

The inside cover and a couple of pages from inside my book....

If you'd like to make faux hand tooled leather for a mini book or to use on your cards, please see the tutorial below this post for how to do it. If you want to know what stamp sets I used, drop me a line. I usually put that information, but I'm kind of in a hurry today :-D. Have a great day everyone!!

Blessings!

Barb

Faux Hand tooled Leather Part 1

When I went to Hobby Lobby to get origami supplies for my daughter, I went to the scrapbooking section of the store and found these awesome aged book covers. I just loved them and decided that I could pull that off at home, lol! I took it a step further though and made faux hand tooled leather. I'm going to have to do this tutorial in three parts because I have 11 photos :-). I used two 4" coasters for my covers because we know someone who owns a restaurant and he gave me a ton of them for free! Gotta love it :-) !

Here is what you will need:

Paper:

Crumb Cake card stock- cut into 4x4 squares and corner round each corner (or you could trim after adhering to your covers)

Classic Stampin' Ink:

Early Espresso, Cajun Craze, Soft Suede

Other Supplies:

Finial Press Textured Impressions embossing folder

Brayer

Sponges

Yes glue

Royal Coat satin decoupage medium

Step 1. Take 2 pieces of 4x4 Crumb Cake card stock and run them through the Big Shot in the Finial Press embossing folder. These will be your covers- front and back.

Step 2. Ink your brayer with Early Espresso ink and brayer over the Finial Press embossed card stock covers. You may have to do this a couple of times, but do it lightly so you don't get ink on anything except the raised areas of the embossed card stock.

Step 3. With Cajun Craze and a sponge, lightly sponge over each cover, leaving some areas un-inked.

Step 4. Again with Cajun Craze, sponge over the edges and a few areas of the card stock to deepen the color of the ink.

Step 5. With Soft Suede ink, sponge over the areas you didn't sponge with Cajun Craze and also on the edges. You will want the Cajun Craze to show through the Soft Suede so don't ink too heavily.

See post #2 below for the rest of the instructions...

Faux Hand tooled Leather Part 2

Step 6. Crumple up the card stock, but be careful not to tear the edges.

Step 7. Smooth out your crumpled card stock and flip it face down. Apply Yes glue over the entire back surface. I use my finger to apply because I get better coverage and it also helps to smooth out the card stock so that it lays flatter. Apply it to your coaster and run the brayer over it several times to get good contact with the coaster. Check the edges and smooth them down with your thumbs if needed.

Step 8. After your glue dries, apply one thin coat of Royal Coat Satin Decoupage. When it dries completely, it will have a very slight shine. You don't want it too shiny because you want it to look like hand tooled leather :-).

Step 9. For the inside covers, you will ink the card stock the same as you did on the outside covers. Crumple the inside covers and very lightly, rub your Cajun Craze sponge over the wrinkles. Apply Yes glue as in Step 7 and apply to the inside covers. Apply Royal Coat.

This is what the outside cover and the inside cover look like together.

See post #3 below for the rest of the instructions....

Faux Hand tooled Leather Part 3

Step 9. Sponge the edges of your Crumb Cake pages with Soft Suede.

Step 10. Punch holes in your covers and in your pages and assemble.

This is what the inside of your mini book will look like :-).

And the outside cover. The satin Royal Coat puts just enough shine on the covers to make it look like the smooth hand tooled leather that you often see on saddles. I'll be back later with my completed mini book so you can see the finished book. I haven't finished it yet at this posting :-D.

Let me know if you have any questions and I hope you'll try this technique!

Blessings!

Barb

Finally!!!

I have been completely void of any creative inspiration for the last two weeks :-(. I mean: zippo, nill, nada. I did all the things one does when lacking inspiration- visited blogs, looked in magazines, sat and stared at my supplies for two hours one morning hoping something would jog a creative spark. I gave up trying. My daughter was on the hunt for origami supplies yesterday, so we headed to Hobby Lobby. I went browsing the aisles in the scrapbooking section and found something that was really cool. I loved it! Upon inspection, I realized that I could duplicate that at home myself :-). I just now tried a sample piece and it works just as I thought- only better! I have today and tomorrow full of crazy hours at the skate rink, but I will have a tutorial posted by Saturday. I love the look of my sample piece so much, I may burn the midnight oil tonight creating a project :-). The wheels are turning now ;-). See you soon!

Blessings!

Barb