Frame Makeover

I recently received a watercolor of a place my husband's family has visited many times in Sulphur, OK. I liked the watercolor, but didn't care for the way it was matted or framed. I thought at first of buying a new frame, but then it ocurred to me that I should try transforming the old one.



I found a beautiful espresso brown metallic acrylic paint at the craft store which looked just right to me. I mixed it with approximately an equal amount of glazing medium (love that stuff!) and spread two coats on the frame with an el cheapo sponge brush. (I buy them when they're 10/$1 at the craft store.)



I'm happy with the way it turned out. I haven't found a pre-cut mat that will work, so I'm going to take the painting and frame in and have a mat cut for it. This was an easy and cheap transformation - give it a try!



Immi

Personalized Planner, Cont.

Here are some photos of my finished planner. I originally thought I'd use white behind the cover pages, but I decided I preferred the way the covers looked against black.



I had fun going through my stash of papers, pulling things out with orange. It was great to be able to find paper I wanted to use without having to make a trip to the store; I guess it's not so bad, having all these supplies on hand!



After everything had dried, I had to trim excess paper from the edges, and punch holes. Not the most fun, but necessary.



For tabs, I used a punch I bought recently that punches the shape of a ticket. It's a rectangle, with half circles at each short end. The corners are cut off at an angle. I punched a piece from each of the papers I had used, and ran them through my Xyron. I have a love/hate relationship with my Xyron. It's great adhesive, but there's always adhesive residue at the edges of whatever you've run through it. It's quite frustrating to rub it all off with a special "eraser". Maybe I'm just doing it wrong.



Anyway, I folded the ticket shape over the edges of the pages to create tabs, and painstakingly rubbed off excessive adhesive. I pulled out my label maker (love that!), and used clear labels for my categories. I printed a label for both sides of the tabs, so I can see what my sections are from either direction.



After the labels were on, I reassembled the book. Then just for fun, I pulled out some odds & ends of ribbon (we'll talk about ribbon storage some day) and tied short pieces onto the binder rings. All done, and I think I'll enjoy using it! It's so great when I can combine organizing & crafts!!



Immi

Personalized Planner

A while back, I bought a kit for a scrapbook. I didn't know exactly what I would do with it, but it was on clearance, so what could I do? The kit consisted of two decorated covers, blank white tagboard pages, ribbons for tabs and binder rings. It languished for some time, until I thought I'd try turning it into a planner. One of these days, I hope to have a phone/pda combo, but for now I need a way to keep track of "stuff".
The covers were great as is: clear plastic with a design in shades of orange. The white pages (so boring) I decided to cover with decorative paper and use as dividers. I cut office waste paper to the correct size and punched holes to put in the sections for notes, shopping lists, etc. I also created a calendar with Excel (my daughter will be so proud) for one of the sections.

To cover the divider pages, I decided to use Yes! paste. I think this works well for this type of project. It gives good coverage over the entire piece of paper, provides a good bond, and does not wrinkle. Wrinkling is very problematic with paper because of the moisture in the glue.

Here's how I apply it:
(You'll need waste paper, waxed paper, glue of your choice, tool for scraping/spreading adhesive, damp cloth)

Place paper which will receive the glue face down on a waste piece of paper. Waste paper from the office or your home printer is great for this; keep a stack on hand. Use tool of your choice to scoop some paste from the jar & deposit it on the paper. I used a palette knife.
Holding the paper firmly near the top, scrape the paste down the paper. I keep those fake plastic credit cards that come in the mail for this (my husband likes them for bookmarks). Scrape the paste off the edges of your decorative paper, onto the waste paper. Continue to keep a firm grip on the top of the paper! Move your gripping hand out of the way to work on the top of the page or turn the waste paper around to finish spreading the paste. You don't need a thick coating, but you do need enough to see the dampness of the paste all over the paper. I stress holding on to your paper because I know from personal experience what a mess can be created if the paper slips; you can end up with paste where you do not want it, on the front of your good paper. This did happen to me a couple of times; I used my damp cloth to wipe it off after securing it to the divider page. You might want to practice with a couple of pieces you don't care about to get the hang of it. If your paper does slip, immediately pick it up, move the waste paper out of the way and bring over a fresh sheet of waste paper.
When you've got the paste spread completely, pick up your glued paper and imediately move that waste paper to a safe distance! Trust me, you won't be sorry if you make this a habit. Put a piece of waxed paper under the surface which will receive the glued paper. At this point, I transfer the glued paper from my non-dominant hand to my dominant hand; I then use my damp cloth to clean the fingers of the non-dominant hand. Line up as best you can the glued paper and smooth it down. You may need to clean your fingers again at this point. Depending on the paper, you may have a few seconds grace time to reposition. If you don't get it exactly the way you want, be willing to embrace some imperfection or think of a creative way to cover up the mistake. I use the side of my fist to smooth the paper down, working from the center outwards. Then I rub my fingers firmly over the edges.
Fold the waxed paper over your glued pieces so that waxed paper is now on both sides. Place under a heavy book to weight down while drying. This keeps your paper nice and flat. I have a stack of old phone books I use for this purpose. Leave for several hours or overnight to dry. Any excess paste on your waste paper can be scraped off and put back in the jar. I continued this same process with the remaining divider pages. As a way to cut down on the amount of waste paper needed, once you've used a couple of sheets, place the gluey sides together. This way, you can use both sides of some of that waste paper. I ended up with a stack of paper, glued together.

Now, back to the planner project. After I glued all the paper to one side of the divider pages, I left them to dry for several hours. I pulled them out, and punched the holes, using the holes in the divider pages a guides. I also trimmed any excess paper from the edges. I then repeated the gluing process for the other side. I let them dry overnight, but they still seemed a little damp the next morning. I decided to stack them again, but this time between sheets of waste paper, in hopes that the waste paper would draw out any remaining moisture.

More next time...

Immi

Finished Metal Tray

Here are the remaining stages of the metal tray makeover. The first photo shows some additional sanding, along with a black glaze acrylic paint drybrushed in spots.







The next photo shows what the tray looked like after I went over it with a brown glaze.







The third photo shows some additional drybrushing with some Quinacridone Burnt Orange and Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold (both by Golden) as well as an espresso metallic paint I bought the other day for a different project.



As soon as we have a day when it's not raining, I'll take the tray out to the garage and spray it with a matte finishing spray. If I'd planned to use it for display somewhere, I think I would have done some collage, but I plan to use it in my studio to corral containers of scissors and glue. I think I'll glue some felt to the bottom to make it easier to slide out and access the tools I want. I guess really it's premature to call it "finished", but close enough!







The last photo is not really related to this subject, but you might be interested anyway. I keep a stack of old book covers near my painting area (the laundry room - I don't dare try to paint upstairs in a carpeted room!). I use these for a lot of my collages. I like to cover them with tissue paper, which I glue on either with white glue or acrylic medium. The tissue paper, which I allow to wrinkle, gives a nice texture to the surface. When I'm painting a project, any leftover paint I brush onto these old book covers. It creates a great depth and layers of colors, and lets me feel virtuous that I've made the most of my supplies. Often, by using this method, I obtain beautiful backgrounds for collage. Old books are available very cheaply at thrift stores and garage sales.







This was a fun experiment. I did go back to the thrift store to get another tray; I plan to try a collage on it. I'll let you know how it goes.







Keep experimenting!



Immi

Metal Tray Makeover, Cont.

These photos show the stages I've completed so far. The first coat is gesso; the second coat is a mixture of shades of red. Looks worse than the original, but I'm not giving up yet!

After the red dried, I added a mixture of shades of yellow. In the photo, you can see that the paint is still wet. The last photo shows the dried yellow with some sanding. I think my sanding block is worn out; it took a lot of elbow grease, and I still don't have the effect I want. Hopefully once I get a new sanding block, I can get rid of more of the yellow to see the red beneath. It's still not particularly lovely, but I do like the way it looks with some of the yellow removed.

I'll keep you posted on how it's going.

Keep creating,

Immi

Metal Tray Makeover

I bought this metal tray ($0.69) at a thrift store the other day. I thought I'd like to try giving it a makeover. I'm hoping to be able to paint it using paints I have here at home. I have no idea whether or not this will work. I'm going to prep it with gesso, and go from there.





I'll let you know how it goes. I'll take photos of each step and report on the results.





I think I'm going to get another one and try some collage on top. We'll see!





Immi

Paper Scrap Storage, Part 2

Here is the system I use for my smaller paper scraps. These drawer units were bought at Target, but I haven't seen this size since then. These are a little deeper than the small units available there now. I like these because they're deep enough to hold a half sheet from 8.5 x 11 paper. The labels aren't very clear in the picture; Brown; Reds; Blue/Green; Black; Yellow; White. I don't know why, but I feel no need to keep these in alphabetical order (very unlike me!).


When I need a small scrap for a card, or want a piece to punch a shape, I look in these drawers first. I used to throw them in willy-nilly, but found it a hassle to search through the drawer; I also overlooked a lot of smaller pieces. I started storing the smallest pieces in snack size or smaller (look in the craft store with the beads) zip lock bags within the drawer. This works well for me; it corrals all those small pieces in one place and makes them easy to find. Sometimes I get out a punch and use it on some of the smaller scraps so I have a supply of flowers, birds, circles, etc. This is a great way to use up some very small pieces I would otherwise be tempted to toss.



Happy experimenting!


Immi