Hello! Today I’d like to share a new Design Team project that I made for both Genuinely Jane Studios as a guest designer and for Artistcellar as a member of the inaugural design team. It combines a wood album in the shape of an arrow from Genuinely Jane and an Old World Map Stencil from Artistcellar.
This is part of a week-long blog hop including both the Artistcellar Design Team and the Genuinely Jane Studios Design Team. Check out Ildi Miskell’s blog today to see what she created with Artistcellar stencils!
I have always adored this photo of two of my brothers when they were little. It shows them holding hands – the older brother confidently leading the way, and the younger brother looking up to him and following his lead. They were such pals! I love how they were sharing the journey of life together and between the two of them, they were ready to meet any challenge they faced head on, together!
I would like to start by sharing a step-by-step tutorial about how you can make a project like mine. After that, stay tuned for information about how you can win a $20 gift certificate from Artistcellar.com!
Step-by-Step Tutorial
To create this project, start with a wood arrow album from Genuinely Jane Studios. Because it has been cut from wood, you may need to sand rough edges or fill spots until it is smooth to the touch. You can use either sandpaper or a sanding block.
Genuinely Jane Studios lists this album as being 6 inches by 6 inches. However, the one I received is 8 inches from the tip of the arrow to the other end, and 6 inches across the arrow’s triangle shape. It comes with two clip rings that are used to bind the four album pages together.
Apply a coat of Claudine Hellmuth Studio Multi-Medium in gloss or matte as a sealer using a Claudine Hellmuth Studio Artist Brush. This will help prevent any oils or impurities in the wood from surfacing and possibly discoloring your project. Once the first coat is dry, apply a second coat of multi-medium at a 90 degree angle, to ensure good sealer coverage.
Once the sealer coats are dry, tear up some pieces of patterned paper. Vintage music paper was used in this example. Apply Claudine Hellmuth Studio Gesso to the sealed wood as a glue, then lay the patterned paper on top. Use more gesso to glue down the edges.
Gesso is porous while other gluing mediums are not. Therefore, using gesso instead of another medium helps you maintain the porous quality of the patterned paper you are applying, so that it will accept water media (Distress Stains) in a later step. If you use a different kind of gluing medium, it will resist the Distress Stains and you will get uneven coverage.
Allow the collaged paper and gesso to dry. Then use scissors to trim away the excess that extends over the sides of the arrow shape. Instead of cutting around the arrow shape, you may find it helpful to keep the scissors in one place and rotate the arrow itself while cutting.
Lay an 8 1/2 inch by 11 inch Venice stencil from the Old World Map Series at Artistcellar.com over the collaged wood arrow.
Apply Tarnished Brass (metallic) and Broken China Distress Stains through the stencil. Where the Broken China color is applied over the Tarnished Brass color, you will get a green shade that blends well with the two original colors.
Use a light touch when applying the Distress Stains, so that the stencil design is retained. In the image below, the Distress Stain was applied more heavily on the upper arrow, blurring the stencil image, while the lower arrow retains the stencil design.
Carefully lift off the stencil to avoid smearing the design. Wipe both sides of the stencil with a paper towel, before continuing with other pieces from the arrow album, to avoid transferring color to areas where it is unwanted.
Repeat the process of collaging paper and applying Distress Stains to the back of the cover and additional pages from the wood album, as desired. Allow the Distress Stains to dry thoroughly on one side before continuing on the reverse side.
Next, apply Viva Decor Inka Gold in Gold to the edges of the wood using your finger. Inka Gold is a metallic beeswax paint that goes on like paste wax and washes up easily with soap and water. Use a cotton swab to get into tight places, such as the corners where the triangular part of the arrow tip meets the base. The Inka Gold should allow you to get full coverage of the wood sides and it will provide shimmer and shine to the project. After applying the Inka Gold, buff it to a shine using a paper towel. Then set the arrow aside.
Tear a piece of white duct tape that is twice as wide as the arrow and place it on a non-stick craft sheet. Using a blending tool and foam, apply Ranger Adirondack alcohol ink in Pool, Lemonade, and Cloudy Blue, using the polished stone technique until the duct tape is fully covered.
Repeat for three to five strips of duct tape, depending on how many ruffles you want to add to your project. You may find it easier to lay all of the strips out first, and then apply the alcohol ink to all of them at the same time.
Don’t worry if all of your strips aren’t the same length. As long as they are at least twice the width of the arrow (12 inches wide) you should have enough and the excess will be trimmed away.
Once the alcohol ink has dried on the duct tape, peel up the strip of tape from the non-stick craft sheet, and turn it over so the sticky side is up. Then carefully fold the tape almost in half, but leaving about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of the sticky side exposed. You may find it easier to tack the middle, then the two ends, and then halfway between the middle and the end, and continue working the halfway points until the entire length is folded.
Then use a permanent marker and a ruler to mark every 3/4 inch along the sticky strip that is exposed. Start from the middle of the strip and work your way out to either end.
Using your fingers, pinch a pleat into the tape on the marks. Only the top edge where the sticky part is exposed will form a crisp pleat. The pleat then causes the opposite edge to ruffle. The pleating may cause the tape to curl into a semi-circle instead of a straight line.
Once you’ve pleated all of your pieces of duct tape, set them aside. Use Ranger Blending Solution and paper towel to clean up your non-stick craft sheet.
UPDATE: After I completed this project, I learned that the alcohol ink is not permanent on the duct tape and it can be rubbed off easily. However, I did some testing and spray sealer, such as Krylon UV-Resistant Clear, will help the alcohol ink stay where you want it. At this point, you can place your strips over a piece of freezer paper at this stage and use the spray sealer. Or wait until you’ve added them to your project, but before adding the other elements. Either way, I’d recommend two coats of spray sealer to prevent any issues. Thanks!
Apply one of your pleated strips of duct tape to the end of the arrow, as straight as you can make it. Use sharp scissors to trim away the excess. Again, you may find it easier to rotate the arrow, rather than rotating the scissors to get the best cutting angle. For now, apply only one ruffled strip so you can see the color and the effect. Then set the arrow aside again.
Decide on the image and sentiment you want to use. Use an ink-jet printer to print the sentiment directly onto a piece of Ranger Kraft Glassine paper and then tear away the excess. You may want to print on a plain piece of printer paper first, to see where the sentiment will end up. Tape the kraft glassine paper on top of the plain paper, so that it completely covers the print out, using removable painter’s tape. Then run the paper through the printer again as a carrier sheet to make sure the sentiment prints properly to the kraft glassine.
Before you print the image, use photo-editing software to flip it so that it is backwards. Print it using a laser printer or have it copied using carbon-based toner.
Use a die cutter to cut a shape from plain paper matching your project and a slightly larger matte from kraft glassine paper.
Place the backwards image face down over the front of the die cut plain paper. Hold it up to the light, if necessary, to position it where you want. Then use a xylene-based blender pen such as this Chartpak Ad Marker Blender Pen to transfer the laser image to the paper.
Use a bone folder or the back of an old gift card to burnish the transferred image. Gently lift the laser printer piece away to reveal the transfer. There will be areas where the paper is wet from the blender pen. Allow the transfer to dry completely.
High-contrast black and white images work the best for this technique. In the example image, the faces are in shadow, so I used photo-editing software to lighten the tones so that you could see the facial features. In the photo above, the image on the left is lighter in tone in the faces and higher in contrast. As a result, it transferred much better than the image on the right.
Next, dry-fit the elements of your project to see how you want to arrange them. Test out different placements and different numbers of ruffles until you are satisfied with the layout. Then adhere them to your project. Don’t forget finishing details like Darice Baker’s Twine or a Teresa Collins Blingage crystal star.
If you wish to use the cover as part of an album, work from the back of the cover to find the holes for binding. Use a craft knife to carefully re-cut the holes and re-insert the clip rings that came with the album under one or more of the ruffles.
Alternatively, if you would like to hang the finished piece in your home as decor, you could attach a sawtooth hanger to the back, using E6000 glue to hold it in place.
Win a $20 Artistcellar.com gift certificate!
As I mentioned earlier, Artistcellar and Genuinely Jane Studios are having a blog hop this week. As part of the celebration, Artistcellar will be giving away a $20 Genuinely Jane Studios gift certificate to one lucky winner, picked from all of the comments left on the Artistcellar.com blog this week on the projects showing Genuinely Jane Studios products – such as this post! You may comment on each Genuinely Jane Studios post on the Artistcellar.com blog once for a chance to win! (And, check out the posts by the Genuinely Jane Design Team, too!)
Thanks for stopping by!