Birthday Present for a friend part 2

As a teaching assistant my friend is always writing down notes so I decided a personalised notebook would be perfect for her second gift.
I purchased a notebook that already had a pretty floral design in shades of pale green, baby pink, brown and turquoise.
First I cut 16 various coloured and patterned pieces of ribbon to 2" long and tied 1 of each to the ring bound spine of the notebook as shown.

 

Next I stamped a butterfly using Versamark onto a piece of Centura pearl card.  I had created an inked background on to this first using the Big and Juicy waterfall inkpad. I then heat embossed the image with silver pearl embossing powder, before cutting out. I attached this as shown using Pinflair glue gel. I then cut a small piece of co-ordinating rose paper and spelt out notebook using silver peel off letters. I stuck this to the front as shown using extra strong double sided tape. Next I took a selection of ready made paper roses and cut the wires off all but 2 of them. Using a pokey tool I curled the wires of these before sticking them all to the front with Pinflair.

Next using 2 different sizes of bunting die I cut 4 patterned and 4 co-ordinating plain bunting pieces. I matted these together using Cosmic Shimmer glue and then added the letters to spell Lynn. I attached them to a narrow strip of ribbon and then glued to the front as shown with a small amount of Pinflair glue gel so that they were quite flat to the notebook. I completed the look with some more paper roses, again stuck with Pinflair.

 The finished personalised notebook. Whats great about this is because it is ring bound the embellishments do not stop the book open properly or laying correctly whilst in use.

 

 

 

Seaside Canvas

The thought of creating a 20" x 8" canvas had scared me for a long time. But finally I realised that even though I couldn't paint I could incorporate my dies and make it more about mixed media than paint.

So knowing I wanted to use my new Days Out Dies from Tattered Lace I gathered all the essentials I thought I wanted to use.

Then using the white and blue acrylic paints I created varying shades of blue and painted the entire canvas. I then lightened one using lots more white to create cloud shapes. 

Next I took a sand effect paper and tore into wavy strips.

 Using cosmic shimmer I glued to the bottom third of the canvas. Once dry I distressed using Adirondack Latte and Tim Holtz old paper to give the sand further colour. 

I then took a gauze bandage and using cosmic shimmer PVA I ruffled and glued along the edge of the sand to create the the edge of the tide.

The next thing I did was to use Tim Holtz Broken China and Adirondack Stonewashed distress ink pads to define the edge of the seascape and start of the skyline.

Next I took shell themed paper clear embossing ink and clear embossing powder. I then heat embossed the whole sheet before cutting out a selection of the images.  

Then using shades of red and white card I ran the bucket and spade die and the beach hut die through the Grand Calibur and layered up to create the desired effect.

I then began assembling my beach scene attaching the die cuts with Pinflair glue gel as well as further seaweed die cuts and my earlier cut shells etc. I also added some dew drops to represent coloured stones, random pieces of flower soft to give the sand texture and tiny pieces if bandage to create the ripples around the boats in the sea.

The finishing touch was adding some flower soft into the top of the bucket to give the effect of it being full of sand too.

All in all for a 1st attempt I like how it turned out and might even be brave enough to attempt an even bigger canvas next time.