Tutorial of the Month: Steampunk Book Cover

Good morning, everyone!  Another month has passed, so it is time for a tutorial…and it is a special one, indeed 🙂  This month, I decided to break out the paints, sprays and metal to transform a boring old gardening book into a scrumptious steampunk book.  Here’s a look at the finished product:

I did a lot to the cover of this beauty to achieve that aged look.  I started with 2 coats of gesso.  After the gesso had dried, I glued 4 layers of the die cuts to the cover.  I then made everything look old by adding a few different colors of Lindy’s and Dylusions ink sprays, followed by a little stamping, and finally a bit of acrylic paint and Rub n’ Buff.  For more detail than this, keep on scrolling for a process video showing the creation of this book right from start to finish 🙂

Once all the inks and paint were dry, I began adding a few other embellishments.  I started with the bronze page corner protectors (#HD373-B).  I then tucked a couple of coffee dyed doilies under corners of the die cuts that I intentionally left unglued.  Actually, I only left 2 of the 4 layers of the die cuts unglued…so the doilies were kinda sandwiched in between.

In the upper right hand corner of the cover, I layered a few small and miniature gear charms over the doily.  Here’s a close look at what I did here:

On the bottom left, I opted to layer a large watch mechanism charm with some large, medium and miniature gear charms.  I then finished the lower right corner with one small gear charm and a Finnibair heart charm from Prima.

Of course, I needed to add some bronze chain (#CH481-B) to this book, and did so by anchoring the chain in the top left using a jump ring around a Tim Holtz hitch fastener.  I then added 2 more jump rings to the cover using a brad through a Tim Holtz fluted fastener.  The last finishing touches included adding a small bronze drawer pull (#HD892-B) on the right, a few Prima metal studs (also Finnibair) along the spine, and finally inking the edges of the pages using “Gathered Twigs” Distress ink.

If your interested in seeing exactly how I created this book, along with all the tools I used, you may just want to give this video a view.  I have included subtitles throughout so that you know exactly what products and tools I am using.

That about does it for this month’s tutorial.  I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did making it 🙂  Cheers and thanks for popping by today!

ButterBeeScraps Supplies:

• Miniature Gear Charms
• Small Gear Charms
• Medium Gear Charms
• Large Gear Charms
• Watch Mechanism Tibetan Charms
• Bronze Curb Chain (#CH481-B)
• Bronze Page Corner Protectors (#HD373-B)
• Bronze Drawer Pull (#HD892-B)

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