Once upon a time...#3UP

To celebrate their 10th birthday PaperArtsy organised, amongst other things, another round of #3up! Just like the last time I jumped in not realising what I was in for!

This time the rules were a little different, as were the supplies. Stamps were added (use at least one), a shade card with 3 to 5 colours (again, use at least one), some substrates (use it, add it to something else, cut it..) and some embellishments.

Here's what came in my #3up package...

Stamp sets crowns and Castles SICC6 and SICC8

TAGS, TAGS, TAGS, 2  die cut from corrugated card,
two from white card, two Manilla Tags
3 sheets of beautiful Smoothy Heavy Weight white stamping card
and ribbons!

My first reaction was "OMG all that Pink and ribbons!" Whilst I was wondering what to do with all this, (perhaps a book, perhaps a series of tags mounted on a larger surface...) my Mystery box that I had ordered from PA arrived and I had more stamp sets which seemed to tie into a theme telling me something ...

"castles /shields / kings & queens / fairytale ".

Crowns & Castles SICC2

Bricks & Mortar SIBM4

Ding & Dong SID1

I decided to make an accordion book, "Once upon a time.... in a land far away (could this be New Zealand?) the fairy tale of two young souls who lived in/came from a far away land. The book would feature our own Mr "King and" Mrs "Queen" PaperArtsy, and celebrate the 10th birthday of our fav stamping company.

 

  

Once upon a time .....

.... in a land.....

So here's the "Fairy Tale" book..

Front cover

The cover tags are  corrugated cardboard, panted with Sherbet, Rose, Very Berry & Claret Fresco paints and stencilled using Grunge Paste tinted with Honey Dew, Sage and Toad Hall Fresco paint.

Grunge paste tinted with Fresco paint

Fleur de lys

The fleur de lys was stamped in archival directly onto Fresco paint, then coloured.

 The "belly band" is a piece of grunge paper cut to size and covered with home-made "Washi tape". Micropore, Fresco paints stamped with Library green Archival. The edges were finished with Emerald, Ruby and Renaissance Treasure Gold.

Home-made Washi tape

 I made several different colours of tape, using Fresco paints and Crimson/Library Green Archival

inside of covers

I used the white card tags to line the covers and hide the joints of the pages to the covers. The treatment was more or less identical to the outside only changing the colours around. I also made angled pockets coordinating with the tags.

Sherbet tag

Sage tag

The tags were custom cut to size from the Manilla Tags crackled with the amazing Crackle Glaze. The Crowns were stamped on Manilla Tags using the Library Green/Crimson Archival, cut out, and once stuck down, jewels added. Not having a ribbon that matched the colour scheme of the sage coloured tag, I dyed plain white ribbon using Sage Fresco paint diluted with water. For the reverse sides of the tags see below..

Unfolded showing front side, spaces for two tags

The pages are from several sheets of cartridge paper. They were sprayed with water then I brushed a quick layer of Sherbet Fresco on Before spritzing with more Fresco paint diluted with water in Mini Misters. I also used stencils to give the pages a bit of back ground in a contrasting colour. The colours are reversed on both sides. I used the "washi tape" to edge the pages of the accordion book and also stuck random pieces to the pages. I cut smaller pages from the paper and sewed them into the folds with contrasting cotton.

The back cover was treated the same as the front with the exception of the shield. The shield itself was treated in the same green tones but crackled with  Crackle Glaze.

Back cover

The chalice which was first stamped on PaperArtsy's georgeous Smoothy Heavy Weight - white stamping card then painted with Vanilla, Haystack, Pumkin Soup, Claret, Sherbet and Hyde Park.

Chalice

I mounted the shield on a hinge so that when lifted it revealed another shield.  We're all raising our chalices (glasses of G&T) this month to celebrate....

Happy 10th Birthday PA!!

.....PaperArtsy's 10th birthday. I copied the image from the blog, resized it, printed it and painted over it with  Pumkin Soup and Little Black Dress. (wasn't sure I could transfer ink jet with medium but Darcy now tells me it can be done so going to attempt it later!).

Flip over the tags and you'll find photos of Mr & Mrs PA! The King & Queen, not of America,  but of Creaseys Farm, Essex, and of course UK stamping!

King and Queen

Happy Birthday 

to everyone at PA Castle HQ

... and thanks again for another opportunity to play!

Mini Album for Véronique

Album open

I needed to make a quick birthday present for a special friend. 

Véronique teaches French here in France, writes poetry and loves her beutiful garden. For her 60th birthday I thought it would be nice to make a mini album with tags so she could write her poetry on them.

Front cover

Back cover

Pages & tags

I decided on and Accordion burst type album. For the album I based the design on the Sunburst pattern from Laura Denison. 

After a false start and a big mistake with the two papers I had initially intended I delved in to my stash and pulled out some long forgotten goodies. I finally used Fancy Filigree and Divine Damask from Pink Paisley's  "Parisian Anthology" collection. Both of these papers have a resist watermark on them, which only really  shows up with inking. they are yummy....yes I don't do scrapbooking but love beautiful papers!

Inked & distressed papers

I distressed the papers with Tumbled glass, Milled Lavender, Spun Sugar and Victorian Velvet.

I then cut and assembled the pages.

I wanted to use my JOFY collection stamps from PaperArtsy on kraft card for the covers and the tags. I experimented with Versafine white, Momento Dessert Sand and Versamark Inks. All of these seemed like a great idea but in reality they were too light. Once dry the stamped images seemed to disappear into the cardstock and made it difficult to "colour in", worst even the translucent paints tended to obliterate the stamped lines. I decided to use a favourite, Archival Sepia. The texts were stamped Versamagic Purple Hydrangea. I made 7 tags, three vertical and 4 horizontal, some with text some without.

 

circles cut from the patterned paper to make tab pulls

 Fresco colours used: Pesto & Hyde Park for the grass, Moonlight, Lilac, Pansy, Claret, Smoked Paprika and Pumkin Soup for the flowers, buds and things.

Et Voilà!

Last word from Véronique: "I don't want to spoil the album by writing in it"!