........ and I’m all yours in buttons and bows. By Shellie Blow

🎼East is east and west is west

And the wrong one I have chose

Let's go where I'll keep on wearin'

Those frills and flowers and buttons and bows

Rings and things and buttons and bows

  

Oooooooh, I love a good film song, and this is one of the greats. It’s also the inspiration for this bright and breezy tag note book.

The first thing I did was to make the buttons. Using That’s Crafty! Textures stamp set 3, I stamped 8 large and 7 small buttons onto white cardstock. I coloured them using Flat Matte Sprays as inks, then applied Glossy Accents and set aside to dry.

For the front cover I started by using That’s Crafty! Light Texture Paste through the Honeycomb Circles stencil on a greyboard #10 tag. Once dried, I gave it a coat of white gesso and 2 coats of Teal Multi Surface Paint. I also painted the edges on the other side of this tag, and 1cm of both sides of another tag. I then dry brushed some white gesso over the top of the texture paste, replaced the stencil, and added a touch of Peacock Feathers Distress ink to emphasis the pattern.

While this was thoroughly drying I made my custom paper by stamping the large and small buttons randomly onto plain white cardstock. A quick spritz with flat matte sprays in rose and aqua followed by a generous spraying of plain water, left to dry naturally, gave a lovely soft focus background. Once fully dried I painted the buttons with the Flat Matte Sprays, again using them as an ink. I drew the stitches on using a white Sakura pen.

I used this for the back cover, and the insides of both covers.

Now that my individual buttons were fully dry I was able to carefully cut them out and make the holes. I used embroidery thread for the small buttons, and 3mm ribbon for the bows on the large buttons. They were then secured in place using a gel glue.

The final job was to make the pages, which I did using coloured copy paper, stamped with the ribbon stamp from “textures 3”, and joined it all together with 2 hinged rings.

Thank you for popping in to have a look at my note book, maybe you’ll have a go at making one. Who knows, you may even sing the song to yourself too!

Products I used:

That’s Crafty! Textures Stamp Set 3

That’s Crafty! Surfaces Greyboard Tags 10

That’s Crafty! Honeycomb Circles Stencil 7”x7”

That’s Crafty! Flat Matte Sprays - Rose, Aqua, Orange

That’s Crafty! Multi Surface Paint - Teal

That’s Crafty! White Gesso

Ranger Distress Ink - Peacock Feathers, Worn Lipstick

That’s Crafty! All Purpose Craft Glue

Colall Gel Glue
3mm Ribbon
Embroidery Thread and Needle
2 x Hinged Rings
Copier Paper