Keyhole Album by Amanda Southern

Hi Everyone

If you regularly follow this blog you will have seen the team share their fabulous projects that we all made for That’s Crafty’s recent appearance on Hochanda TV to launch yet more new products within their alterable substrates. One of the recent additions is a fabulous range of MDF covered acrylic paged albums, you get 2 MDF covers and 3 acrylic pages. There has been some fabulous post recently of what the team have done with them and I would now like to share mine with you. I got the chance to play with the Keyhole album and decided to make it into a nature themed collection. This post is bit longer than my normal post due to sharing all the pages with you but I hope you like it. 

Here’s What I Did:-

For the covers of my album I wanted to create the effect of a leather bound look and to do this I firstly gave both of the MDF covers a coating of white gesso. I then stencilled texture paste through the Moc Croc Dinky stencil, drying and repeating until it was fully covered. I then used several brown colours of Fresco Finish paints to create the brown I wanted, there is a mixture of opaque and translucent paints used. When fully dry I covered it all with a gloss gel medium. I added the word band, my initials with metal letters and rusty pen nibs and the last touch, a feather from one of my own chickens.

For the inside cover I covered it with a piece of designer paper from my stash and stamped onto it. I have also aged it slightly using Distress inks.

For this first acrylic page I started by working on the reverse first by stencilling the blue Prima Alchemy paint through the Moroccan Dinky stencil, then painted over with PaperArtsy old gold paint. On the front I then stencilled texture paste through the Floral Background Dinky and when dry sprinkled with Infusions and lightly misted. It is then very easy to just wipe off the colour from the acrylic leaving it only on your paste. I then stamped the dragonfly onto a torn tag and sprinkled with the same infusion colour. To finish I added the stamping to the acrylic with Stazon and added a word token that I had wiped paint over so that it coloured the engraved text.

For the second page, the reverse of the first, you will see that I am working on the gold that peeps through onto the first page. To break up the gold I have stamped text randomly all over it. I then stencilled using texture paste through the Dinky Fleur stencil. I lightly coloured this when dry with Distress inks. I had stamped and coloured the butterfly onto water colour card and cut out. I then covered it in clear crackle gel and added to my page. Final touch to add the sentiment.

Here you can see the fabulous crackle that the gel produces.

For this acrylic page I have first stamped the butterflies on the front with black Stazon and then these have been coloured from behind with Fresco paints. I have then stencilled through also on the front using Honeycomb Dinky stencil and Stazon ink applied with Cut & Dry Foam. I then added a page from an old nature book to the reverse.

On this side I have simply stamped and coloured with coloured pencils onto the book page and then aged slightly with Distress inks.

Again with this page I started with the reverse colouring the acrylic page with a selection of browns of alcohol inks applied with the alcohol ink blending tool and a little alcohol blending solutions to lighten the colours. On the front I then stencilled texture paste and coloured as per technique on a previous page. I stamped the  flower onto watercolour card and coloured with Distress inks, distressed the edges and wrapped with jute, I added that on top of a piece of bandage that I had coloured with Distress inks. Text to the image has been added using Remnant Rubs. 

My final acrylic side is on top of the alcohol inks that pops through the stencilling of the other side. I stencilled the flight of Butterflies Dinky stencil with texture paste, coloured with Infusions when dry and then covered with Glossy Accents which really makes the butterflies shine. I love how the design of the stencilling from the other side shows through. I then heat embossed my sentiment on in white and added some Remnant Rubs. 

and finally the back inside cover and the back on the album.

What I Used:-  

That’s Crafty! Surfaces Acrylic/MDF album – Keyhole

All Stamps used are Tim Holtz from either the Stamper Anonymous Classic range or Tim Holtz Cling range - Ledger Script, Wildflowers, Handwritten Thoughts, Flower Garden, Perspective, Bird Feather, Classics 17, Classics 11, Classics 1

That’s Crafty! Dinky Stencils – Moc Croc, Honeycomb, Moroccan, Floral Background, Flight of Butterflies

Distress Inks

PaperArtsy Fresco Finish Paints

Prima Finnabair Art Alchemy Paint – Deep Waters

Prima Modeling Paste - Opaque Matte

Prima 3D Gloss Gel

DecoArt Crackle Glaze

PaperArtsy Infusions

Distress Spray Bottle

Gesso

Black Stazon Ink Pad

Black Archival Ink Pad

Cut & Dry Foam

Spectrum Noir Coloured Pencils

Alcohol Inks

Alcohol Ink Blending Tool

Alcohol Ink Blending Solution

Glossy Accents

Tim Holtz Idea-ology – Word Bands, Muse tokens

Tim Holtz Remnant Rubs

Anything Else I haven’t listed came from my stash

Sorry for the lengthy post but hopefully you have enjoyed looking through the pages that I have created.

I’ll see you all next Tuesday, and I promise, with a shorter post!

Love

Amanda X