Part 2-Twiddleybitz Gate Book with Ngaire Gilligan

Hi Twiddley Fans,

Ngaire Gilligan is back with us today sharing the next step in recreating her altered Gate Book.

So here we go:

The inner side of the front cover pages have been designed to match the first full page of the album. The base paper for all 3 pages, is the pretty, blue reverse side ofQuince. The main page included part of the floral design on this paper, but the inner cover pages use the plain blue section of the paper.

The main embellishment on the left inner cover is this gorgeous Twiddleybitz  Flying Butterfly Clock – Steam (SPK002).  The final finish comes from a layered approach to the mediums applied to it. I started with an application of cream paint (Antique White from Kaiser). When you want a pale or light coloured finish to chipboard it is often best to apply a white/cream paint to start with, so that the chipboard colour itself does not alter/overshadow the final colour.

The next step is to apply Iridescent Gold Glimmermist so that you get a shimmery gold look to the chipboard. Although you are going to add in further medium layers, applying a shimmer now will allow it to show through in the background.

 The next step was to coat the butterfly in Rock Candy Crackle Paint and allow to dry. It’s best not to use  your heat gun on this, as the crackle does not work well with a heat gun – but once the crackle process is well underway, you can use a light application of heat to ‘extend’ the crackle. How cool does this look?

 Although this stage in the process is lovely – it is too pale for the colours used in the mini – so I need to darken it a little. I’ve done this by applying a darker colour to the crackle finish (in this case Galaxy Gold Brilliance Ink) and rubbing it into the cracks in the crackle paint so that it emphasises the cracks and darkens the finish.  To further grunge it up a little I also rubbed a small amount of black ink into the edges of the chipboard. So here is the final piece – full of interest and texture and an underlying glimmer.

When starting with the embellishing of the left inner page I popped a section of hand cut flowers (from the floral pattern on Quince) on the right hand edge of the page. Like most cut out pieces I do, I’ve applied some matching ink to the edges of the cut out elements to help hide the sharp white edge you get from cutting them out of the paper. 

 One of the ticket die cuts (with complimentary colours to the paper) from theCollectibles pack was next.

 Next comes my gorgeous butterfly.

 And then some of the word pennants from the Collectibles pack.

 And the finishing touch – a small cream (no brand) flower – which has been sprayed with a light misting of Iridescent Gold Glimmermist.

Here is the page in the album.

 

 And another close-up of that gorgeous pattern on the butterfly…

The middle page has this gorgeous floral pattern down one side and I love that so much, that I didn’t want to hide it very much. The photo takes up most of the rest of the blank space on the page, so the trick is to try and embellish around the photo – leaving as much of that pretty pattern as possible.

  

 To make the most of the space, I’ve chosen to use some corners from the Swirls Pack 8 pieces (SPK002) which I am going to tuck under the photo corners and have protruding over the edge of the page. For this page I want to emphasise the white/gold combination on the page (since the photo has some white on it too) so I’ve chosen gold ink and a white/gold embossing enamel finish for the chippy.

I’ve started off with my go-to Galaxy Gold Brilliance Ink for the base layer …

and finished it off with this lovely Stampendous Aged Ivory Embossing Enamel.  It’s a mixture of off-white with this stunning gold fleck mixed in here and there. Love it.

And here the corners are, tucked in under opposing corners of the photo.

 I found this lovely little journalling spot in the 6.5″ Paper Pad - it was perfect popped into a space in the floral pattern. I also added in a small bit of hand cut flowers that were left over from the left (inside) cover page.

 The final touches were a hand cut butterfly for the top right corner – which was looking a bit bare – and a journalling tag from the Collectibles pack. I added a length of black ribbon to the tag and popped it in behind the photo. Most of the photos in this album have been adhered with dimensional tape for the purpose of allowing me to hide the journalling tags behind the photo.

And here is the page in the finished album.

The inside, right cover has been kept pretty simple – partially because the left side is so complex and dimensional and partially because I really wanted to feature the die cut quote panel. After cutting out and trimming the panel, I lightly inked the edges so that it would stand out from the background paper a little better. Underneath it I put a bit of muslin fabric, which I had pulled apart at the edges a little to make it look fragile and delicate.

The only addition to the page is a trio of the small flowers I’ve used throughout the album. It’s nice to repeat elements so as to make sure that the various pages are linked throughout the whole mini.

 

 Here is the same page in the finished album.

And there you go – the first set of pages are done.