Vintage Mini Album or Signature Book

Today's post is a long one! Its full of photos, details, instructions, and 3 videos!! My grandmother turned 85 yesterday. We had a huge "reception" party for her. Very fancy. I offered to make a book for guests to sign. Well, let's just say that the vintage style of my book was a complete contrast to the decor to put it mildly! However, my grandmother LOVED it!

This book was a signature book, but could just as easily become a mini album with other decorated pages instead of the lined papers I used.

Front cover is below.

Inside Front Cover is below. Each ad was significant to my grandmother!

 

Back Cover is below.

Front Cover Detail is below. I LOVE these metal frames. 

 

Prima Say It With Pearls – cut off and use just the portion you want! See photo below.

Technique for the embellishment on the Front Cover: Emboss Resist

The technique I used for the cover is called Emboss Resist. Here are the instructions for what I did:

1. Ink and distress the background cardstock or designer patterned  paper that you will want to show through. I inked (to age) and stamped an image that I wanted to show through. Using patterned paper will work great too! Just remember that what is on the base below the embossing powder will show through in the end. Make it something dramatic!
2. Before you do the next step, rub an Embossing Buddy (corn starch puff) over your cardstock/paper. I ALWAYS forget to do this and end up with a paint brush trying to remove the excess embossing powder. Ugh! I used a stencil (the cheap kind of paper stencils from the hardware store) for the numbers on the background paper. You could use a stamp instead! I laid the stencil down and inked the area with VersaMark ink. If you use a stamp, just ink the stamp with VersaMark! I then removed the stencil.
3. Cover area with CLEAR embossing powder and heat emboss.
4. Rub a darker color ink (any color) all over the paper and the embossed area. You can do this in a distressed fashion or more solidly. Wipe the excess ink off the clear embossed area. You will now have a "peek thru" to the base paper! Super simple!

Here's a Hot Tip for those of you who are new to distressing and inking edges. Using more than one color creates great depth! Use a lighter color to rub in a bit around the border, maybe 1/2 or 1" deep. The second color should be darker and you only apply it to the edges, barely allowing it to come onto the top surface of the paper. You could use 2 shade of red or two shades of green. Match it to whatever you are doing!

Here is the quote from the Tim Holtz Visual Artistry stamps that I used.

Here is the pdf version of the lined paper I used for the signature book. This is loaded on scribd, but you can also email me for a direct copy at creativepzazz at gmail dot com.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Leslie