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)