Imagination Is....... by Gill Humphrey

Following on from my make last week with Magic Forest this week I have a folio to share with you. To create the base for the folio I took two 8" square canvas panels and joined them together with a piece of canvas 3" wide x 9" tall. I covered the side that was going to form the outside of the spine with a piece of Metal Decoration rice paper and then scored at 1 and 2" on the long sides and 1/2" and 8 1/2 on the long side - before folding over the smaller scored pieces I then adhered a 1" x 77/8" piece of canvas inside the scored panel so that once I had folded the top and bottom of the main piece over the edges of the extra panel were hidden - this way there are no raw edges of canvas showing on the edges of the album. The spine piece was then adhered to the inside of the canvas panels using the 1" vertical score lines as a guide to ensure they were straight.  

I tore the remaining rice paper into pieces and used Decoupage Varnish and Glue Matte to adhere it to the cover making sure I had covered the exposed surface to the rice paper to seal it as I did this.

 

 

Once the rice paper glue had dried I added some details by applying Modeling Paste through the Door Ornaments stencil and left it to dry again. To add colour to the background I then applied Patina Blue Antiquing Gel to some areas wiping it back before it had dried and then added Brown Antiquing Gel to the remaining areas before wiping back again. I also used the Antiquing Gels to colour the inside edges and spine of the cover.

Next I chose papers from the 8 x 8 pad and trimmed them to 20 x 20cm before distressing the edges and inking with Coffee ink. Before attaching these papers to the covers I added a strips of kraft card 4.7cm by 15cm scored at 13.5cm to create a flap which was adhered centrally to the back of each panel. I then added magnets to the area of these flaps that overlap to help keep the waterfall panels in place when not being looked at. The flaps were then decorated with paper pieces left over from cutting the panels for the waterfall panels, a sentiment from the papers and a chipboard die cut.

To create my waterfall panels I took pieces of kraft card 16cm wide and 12.5 cm tall and scored them at 1.5cm to create a hinge. These were inked with the coffee pigment ink before adhering in place. To decorate these I then cut one of the 8" papers to 15.5cm and then divided it up starting at the top of the image I cut a panel 10.5cm tall and then cut 1.5cm pieces until I had one for each of the remaining flaps.

For the inside of the waterfall panels I added a 15 x 10.5 cm piece of watercolour card decorated with the ivy leaves from the Amazon stamp set stamped in Coffee ink and then added a fussy cut tag from the paper pack. For the smaller panel this was repeated but with watercolour card cut to 15xm by 8.5cm.

This process was then repeated for the other side of the folio.

To decorate the cover of the album I collaged left over pieces of paper before adding my resin embellishments. To create these I cast all of the elements from the A5 Amazon mould before priming with gesso and then paining - for the face I used Old Ivory and Indian Turquoise from the paint set, warming the Old Ivory up by adding a tiny amount of Coral Red to achieve a skin colour. The Coral Red was also mixed with white to give a pink for the lips. 

For the metallic elements I used Antique Copper acrylic by Pentart which can be found in the Patina Paint Effect Set. Once dried the pieces were then aged with Brown Antiquing Gel.  For the lock and cartouches that sit below the face I used the Copper paint and aged them with the Patina Blue Antiquing Gel. I placed a piece of shredded gauze on the cover at the level the race was going to finish before adhering a sentiment and the face as shown. The cartouches were adhered so that some of the gauze sits over them and finally the decorative strip added on top. The locks and hinges were adhered trapping in some ribbon for the closure. I added some of the Burnt Umber and Turquoise Glamour Sparkles and a healthy splattering of White and Indian Turquoise paint before tying more ribbons around the spine to complete the folio.