Floral Mini-Album Pt 11 Page 5 Completing the Pop-Up Cover

Recently I made a new mini-album, about my mum who died in December. I was unable to publish anything about this until now because it is a present for her best friend, who sometimes visits my blog, and I wanted it to be a surprise for her. I wrote a series of blog posts as I did each stage of the project, so I didn’t forget what I did, and they will be published in sequence now the project is finished and has been given to our friend.

If you want to see the finished project, please click here.

Returning to page 5, I needed to complete the cover of the piano keyboard pop-up. I needed to decide how to keep it closed; the bottom edge is very close to the bottom of the page, not leaving much room for any sort of fastening, so in the end I decided on a magnet. Because I had not yet attached a mat to the cover, it was a simple matter to attach the magnet to the outside, but fitting the other magnet inside the page was more difficult because it was hard to get at, but with a bit of fiddling, I succeeded in the end.

Before this I had been working on the mat for the pop-up cover. In the next picture, you can see the two mat pieces (one for each album) lying on top of the original card (another sheet I really don’t like!) – to begin altering the mat pieces, I smooshed them with Mermaid Lagoon Distress Ink. I wanted to match the colour scheme of the rest of the page, but with a different texture. I used the same technique that I used for the striped paper with the letters and numbers on the flower pop-up page – covering the letters but retaining the stripes which add interest.

The next colour I added was Peacock Feathers, smooshing as before. Again, I’ve laid the pieces on top of the original, so that you can see how the alteration progresses.

Next came Chipped Sapphire, which is quite a bit darker, and less turquoise and more blue – verging towards purple.

After this I introduced a single colour in Distressed Oxides – Wilted Violet, which was beginning to give me the finished result that I wanted.

The wooden skewer is very useful for holding the pieces down when drying with my powerful heat gun, which otherwise tends to blow the pieces all over the place!

To darken the pieces still further, I distressed the whole surface with Walnut Stain Distress Ink, using an Inkylicious Ink Duster.

Perfect.

To finish off the pieces, it was just a question of a bit of double distressing, using first Chipped Sapphire and then Black Soot.

Here is the finished result, with the pop-up cover mat in place. The cover is held down very nicely with the magnet.

Here’s another picture of the keyboard pop-up, open, and showing no evidence of any fastening.

Time to move on and consolidate another unfinished page – this time, inside the front cover.

Floral Mini-Album Pt 10 Page 8 Flower Pop-Up

It’s been weeks since I was doing this regular resume of how I constructed the Floral Mini-Album – first of all it was illness and recovery, and since then I’ve just been too busy with other things, and trying to catch up with everything. So today I decided to resume it.

Recently I made a new mini-album, about my mum who died in December. I was unable to publish anything about this until now because it is a present for her best friend, who sometimes visits my blog, and I wanted it to be a surprise for her. I wrote a series of blog posts as I did each stage of the project, so I didn’t forget what I did, and they will be published in sequence now the project is finished and has been given to our friend.

If you want to see the finished project, please click here.

The second pop-up in this mini-album.

I began by making the mat for page 8. Again, the paper for the base was pretty boring, so I added smooshed Dusty Concord Distress Ink, and then some Infusions (Violet Storms and Violetta). This darkened the paper and made it a lot richer and more interesting. I finished it by distressing the edges, first with Dusty Concord, and then with Black Soot Distress Inks. The way I do this double distressing is to take the lighter colour first, and using an ink blender, in the traditional way, working flat on the table from the outside inwards. After this, I pick up the piece of card and using an ink blender with the darker shade, swipe downwards across the edges, so that only the very edge is caught. I expect other people do this too so I can’t really claim it as my invention, but for now I’ll call it Shoshi’s Double Distressing Technique!

Here is the paper, matted onto the flap of page 8.

Then I turned to the pop-up which will be underneath this flap. I followed several Youtube videos on this pop-up, each with a slight variation – if you search “Flower Pop-Up” on Youtube, you will come up with plenty of tutorials. I adapted the measurements to suit my project, and for the mat I cut a piece 6 in x 3 in, so that when it is folded in half, it produces a 3-inch square.

Here are the papers for the pop-up mat. These are for both copies of the album.

The original is on the right, and this isn’t the sort of paper I thought I’d ever use, which is why it’s been in my stash for so many years! With the addition of several layers of Distress Inks and Distress Oxides, it is totally transformed and much better. I like the way that the stripes are still visible but the text has virtually disappeared.

What I did was first of all to smoosh it with a mixture of Walnut Stain and Vintage Photo Distress Inks. As I’ve mentioned before, this paper stack is a bit weird – the paper seems to have a slightly waxy finish to it which resists the ink, but you do end up with some quite nice splotchy results.

After drying it with my heat gun, I smooshed it again, this time with Wilted Violet Distress Oxide, and dried it. The second smooshing seems to work better than the first.

The next step was to go over the whole thing with Walnut Stain Distress Ink, using an ink blender tool, working inwards from the outer edge, until it was lightly covered, muting everything down.

I spritzed what was left on the craft sheet with water, and smooshed it again to mop up any waste, and finally, after drying yet again, I distressed the edges with an ink blender, using Black Soot Distress Ink.

Now it was time to start making the flowers for the pop-up. I had one sheet of this in the stack:

I do like the gradation of colour and the distressed look of this particular paper. I thought there would be just enough to make sufficient flowers for both albums, and this proved to be correct, but on a couple of the pieces there was a bit of text at the edge, but most of this was cut off eventually.

I cut fourteen squares, each measuring 3 in x 3 in, seven for each pop-up. Because I was concerned (unnecessarily, as it turned out) that the white backs of the squares would show, I inked them up with Dusty Concord Distress Ink, using the ink blender, not worrying too much about evenness – I quite liked the slightly marbled look.

I spritzed the craft sheet with water, though, and smooshed them through it to smooth it out a bit.

I decided to play with some Distress Oxides, and first added Spiced Marmalade, but this made it look too different from the front, so I added some Worn Lipstick. I fell in love with the result – so much so that I abandoned the idea of using the front at all, and decided to use this instead! As the backs weren’t going to show anyway, I could have saved that particular paper, which was about the best sheet in the entire stack!

Beginning to cut the flower shapes from the squares. The small white shape on the right in the next photo is a mock-up, which I used to trace around to get the shape. You fold the square into four, and then again at 45 degrees, and cut a curve at the top, so that when you open it up, you end up with eight petals.

Now for some fun. I painted the edges, and the divisions between the petals, with Perfect Gold Perfect Pearls, using my Perfect Pearls palette which makes them so much easier to apply.

I drew the centres and veins with two shades of Sharpie pens.

Then I cut out one petal from each flower. I kept these for later use.

Overlapping the two petals either side of the gap, I glued them together, making the flower into a concave shape with six petals.

I then folded them all in half, with the fronts on the inside.

I followed the instructions on the Youtube videos as to how to glue these together – too complicated to write out, and much easier to watch (see Youtube). You end up with a stack of flowers, but they are glued in such a way as to expand into a bouquet when attached to the flaps of the pop-up.

The final step was to make some leaves, and I forgot to photograph this. What I did was to take scraps of green card and fold them in half lengthwise, and cut out a curved shape, so that when it opened, it was a leaf with a crease (vein) down the centre. I glued these randomly onto the backs of the petals, and then stuck the whole pop-up inside the pop-up mat, first sticking down the bottom half of the bouquet to the lower part of the mat, making sure the fold went well into the fold in the mat, and folded down the upper part of the mat and pressed it down well. I then opened up the top part of the mat, applied more glue to the exposed back of the pop-up, and folded the mat down again and pressed it well. I didn’t open it until I was sure the glue was dry. They were now ready to attach inside the flap of page 8.

I chose some more of the paper from the stack which would go well for matting inside the page flap.

I didn’t go to a lot of trouble altering it, but just distressed the edges, first with Dusty Concord Distress Ink and then with Walnut Stain Distress Ink, using the Double Distressing method.

Then I mounted the two mat pieces under the flap of page 8.

I attached the completed pop-up on its mat, using Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive, using the same method I used for attaching the pop-up to its mat. Again, I did not open it until I was sure the glue was completely dry.

Once it was dry, I was pleased that the page and its flap were substantial enough to hold the pop-up firmly, and it operates really well. I had to prop the flap open because it won’t stay open on its own and I didn’t have a spare hand when taking the photo!

There was a bit of a gap above the pop-up, and in front of it. Also, when you closed the flap of the page, a little of the yellow striped paper was visible, which I didn’t like, so I decided to make a pocket from black cardstock, extending the full width of the page. Once this was done, I created four identical strips (two for each album) from the striped paper I used for the pop-up mat, and altered it to co-ordinate with the page, this time using more of the purple and less of the brown, to echo the colour of the flowers and also the outside of the page flap.

Here are the pieces I cut for this.

This is really horrible paper. However, I am so glad that I never got round to disposing of this paper stack which has been hanging around for years – until recently I wouldn’t have had enough imagination or experience to improve it, but now, I am so pleased with the end result that I can forgive it for being so awful to start with!!

I knew that the stripes would still be visible when it was done, and this was something I fully intended to happen, because they would echo the stripes in the pop-up mat paper nicely. I cut the strips so that the stripes would run vertically, and I had a job centring them exactly, because the design had not been printed exactly in the middle of the paper, and the first stripe (yellow) was 1/16 in wider than the rest of the stripes, which were 1 in wide. This may not seem much, but it really showed, so once I realised, I trimmed off this small amount, and then I was able to use my Tim Holtz centring ruler to get the stripes exactly where I wanted them on each strip.

Now it was time to alter them. I began by smooshing them several times with Dusty Concord Distress Ink. As I mentioned before, the surface of this paper feels slightly waxy and seems to resist the ink, so it needed several attempts to get enough coverage, drying each time with my heat gun before doing it again. I then applied Dusty Concord Distress Ink all over the pieces using my ink blender, spritzed the craft sheet with water to use up any residue of ink, and smooshed them again.

Already the paper was looking a bit better.

The next step was to smoosh again with Wilted Violet Distress Oxide. Again, I dried it and repeated the exercise until all the ink on the craft sheet was used up and I was satisfied with the result.

An improvement again. They just needed darkening a little, so this time I smooshed them with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

Once they were dry, I ironed them to get rid of the wrinkles, and distressed the edges with Walnut Stain and Black Soot Distress Inks, again using the Double Distressing method. This was the final result.

This was definitely the look I wanted. All the naff letters and numbers had disappeared, but the stripes were still visible. All that was required was to attach them to the pocket and the top of the page flap, and the flower pop-up was complete.

The finishing touch was to take some of the petals that had been removed from the flowers in order to construct the pop-up, and to attach them randomly with a little Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive, so that they appeared to have fallen from the bouquet.

Altogether a very pleasing result and I think the papers and the colours go together well. I am so, so glad I didn’t get rid of that awful paper!!!

Now all I have to do to complete the basic work on the albums is to cover the inside of the back cover, and create a pocket for a CD of some of Mum’s favourite music, and then apply papers to the front, back and spine of the cover, ready for embellishing. There is also the automatic waterfall mini to go inside the front cover, and I’m not very happy about page 1 which really needs some more interest before I embellish it. In addition, I need to make large pull-out tags to slide into each page edge, so there’s still quite a lot to do.

Visit to Teignmouth

Today we went with some friends for a day out in Teignmouth. My hubby and I have been before on more than one occasion, and have just walked along the sea front, which is lovely, but today we explored some of the little town itself, which was a delight.

There is are some lovely buildings in the town. I love seaside architecture – it’s so light-hearted and fun, and immediately makes one think of holidays.

We sat under the flags to have some mid-morning refreshment.

Looking back along the sea front at the different styles of houses.

The railway runs along beside the sea.

The church is most unusual, and looks as if it’s made of gingerbread! Note the rope-like arch in the apex of the roof. It makes me think it might have been built as a fishermen’s chapel.

We had a delicious lunch in an Italian restaurant, and then set forth to explore the town.

Narrow winding streets full of fascinating little shops.

I loved this covered veranda running the full length of this little terrace of cottages.

Along the street was a house where they’d blocked off one of the windows with board a few inches behind the glass, and made this beautiful 3-D seascape complete with shimmering fish and real shells. I wish the photo did it justice.

Beautiful balconies throughout the town.

We came across this cake shop with the most brilliant display of unusual cakes!

Here are some detail shots of my favourite ones. Incredibly realistic!

Barbecue cake.

Baked potato cake.

Burger and chips cake.

Finally, one especially for Zsuzsa: Oreo cake!

A shop full of lovely little seaside ornaments – I love this stuff.

A mosaic outside a community shop.

In a shop full of wooden things, I particularly liked this little tree. This could be made with card, cut on the cutting machine. It’s a simple cross cut assembly made of only 2 pieces slotted together.

A baby seagull, piping plaintively for his mum! He looked so cute, tail-less, with such big feet. Pity they grow up to become such a menace.

We loved all the tiles on this house. No doubt as to what number house it is in the street!

A place to chill out, on the boat slipway looking across to the bridge that goes over to Shaldon.

Finally, the two necklaces I bought in a shop that was selling tons of fabulous necklaces at half the marked price. They were so cheap I just couldn’t resist. My hubby says he’ll take me back before the end of the week when the sale ends – too good to miss! We were a bit short of time because of having to rescue the car, which was a bit frustrating. There were so many quirky and unusual shops and I can’t wait to go back and have a good wander around.

It was a simply marvellous day out. I think I could happily live in Teignmouth!