Recycled Mini-Album Pages–Childhood

Because this album contains personal family information I am unable to share fully all the pages with you, but I can show you what I’ve been working on recently – pages concentrating on a childhood in the 1920s.

For this first page, I took three pictures (scanned and printed from the original photos) and ripped the edges to soften them. They were lightly distressed with Weathered Wood and Tea Dye Distress Inks. I created a deeply textured background from scrunched up tissue paper laid down with regular matt gel medium which was then painted with a mixture of Payne’s Grey and white acrylic paints, with a final light application of silver gilding wax on the high points of the texture. The pictures were applied with more gel medium, as were the card strips with the hand-written text. The irregular border was added at the end, following the edges of the textured background.

An important feature of this album is the arrangement of the pages throughout. All the pages were made from recycled Christmas cards painted with black gesso, and I have trimmed them so that they decrease in size to the centre of each signature, with the smallest, central one having its sides glued together to form a pocket into which a tag can be placed, which will probably be the only interactive aspect of this particular album. I am creating a different black and white border for each page so that the further into each signature you move, the more of these compound borders will be revealed.

The next picture shows some plastic packaging from some chicken pieces I bought recently. Once I spotted the gorgeous texture on the bottom, I couldn’t throw these little plastic trays away! You can see that I have cut out some pieces from the base of another identical tray.

These pieces are resting on a piece of kitchen paper that I’ve been using for mopping up – it has developed into a gorgeous grungey background which is definitely going to find its way into the album at some point. The complete chicken tray is resting on a new scratch paper which is developing well into a nice background piece, too.

Now for the transformation of the chicken packaging! Unrecognisable, isn’t it!!

I cut the border off the lozenge-shaped textured pieces, and with three of these these border pieces I created a frame for the journaling by gluing them down onto a piece of card which has previously been painted with a mixture of blue, green and crimson acrylic paints. Onto this I wrote the text, and then glued the whole thing in place onto the page. The lozenge-shaped pieces were painted and then glued direct to the page after the photo had been applied. I added a touch of gold gilding wax to the raised texture of all the pieces. (I think gilding wax is becoming my signature material as I simply can’t resist using it!)

For the background of the page, I took my Decreasing Circles stencil and applied Versamark embossing ink through it with a small piece of Cut’n’Dry foam. I added some strencilling over the edge of the photo as well, to make it blend into the page. After this I painted on some Perfect Pearls in Cappuccino and (I think) Green Patina.

I made a small tag from scrap card which I painted black, and embellished in the same way with the stencil and Perfect Pearls. Onto this, with my white Sigma pen, I wrote some journaling about the two older generations depicted in the photo. I made two circles from card stamped with archival black ink using a flower stamp and inked with three shades of Distress Inks – Tea Dye, Victorian Velvet and Weathered Wood, and these were glued either side of the tag. Using a 1 1/2 in circle punch, I cut a semi-circle from the edge of the tag pocket so that when the tag was inserted, the tag puller would completely fill the semi-circle.

A black and white heart border completed the page, softened a little with some curves on the right hand page.

Some detail:

I added a little Perfect Gold Perfect Pearl from my Perfect Pearls palette, to outline the chicken packaging pieces and add a bit of definition.

A detail shot of the tag, slightly pulled out, revealing how the tag puller fits into the semi-circular hole, and showing a little of the white jorunaling inside, and the stencilled background.

Turning the page, the second childhood page is revealed.

This picture shows the reverse side of the tag puller. I embellished the pages with some clear heat embossing to create some texture – the stamps were from the Tim Holtz Bitty Grunge set by Stampers Anonymous. The photos were stuck down with gel medium. Over the bottom of the left hand photo, I stamped with Versamark, using another stamp from the same set, and then heat embossed with Distress Embossing Powder to give a raised, rough texture.  I went over the entire page with Versamark, using the small piece of Cut’n’Dry foam dabbed randomly over the page, and then I applied some Perfect Pearls with a soft brush – the colours were as before, but using Interference Green instead of Green Patina. This treatment was extended over the photos too.

Over the right hand photo, I stuck down a die cut vintage bicycle, one of several which Julia, our WOYWW hostess, sent me some time ago – this particular one was lime green to start with, but I distressed it with Tea Die Distress Ink and then applied it with gel medium, some of which ended up on the surface, creating a nice random texture, which was highlighted by the application of some copper gilding wax, giving the bicycle a lovely vintage, rusty look. I did not add further borders to this particular page.

Videos will follow in due course – I’m still in the process of editing them.

The next page will concentrate on student days and young manhood.