Discovering: An Ocean Themed Folio

 

Hello! It's been way too long since I've given any attention to my blog or to my crafty things for that matter. The last time I 'played' in the Closet was about a month or so ago when I indulged in a few minutes of delightful messiness experimenting with some Brusho's I picked up at a yard sale. I had no idea what to expect from these powders, but my takeaway is they require a larger work area than I have currently and don't plan on showing your hands in public for a few days after using them. And a tarp would be helpful.

For my experiment, I chose some old cheapo scrapbook paper I was going to throw out anyway and an oversized stencil I've never used. I laid the stencil on the paper, sprinkled what seemed like a very little powder and spritzed with water. These powders make so much color, and I didn't want to waste it.  I used my painted/Brusho'd stencil to make a monoprint on a heavier piece of 12 x 12 paper and then mopped up the remainder on some scraps of card, front and back. Everything sat until yesterday, when I decided to challenge myself to use those papers. For the past couple weeks, I had been watching this video  on making a folio using one book page. (I'm not much for watching videos and can only take them in small 5 or 10 minute doses at the most with the sound turned off, so it can take weeks to watch one video at lunch or with my morning coffee.) Check it out if you want to give it a try.

I used some old Prima and Tim Holtz stamps and a Tim Holtz stencil/Translucent Grit Paste to decorate the front and back covers.

More Tim Holtz stamps decorate the pockets and the tags made from those Brusho mop up scraps. Some fussy cut stamped images (an old wood block stamp from my stash) make the shallow tuck spots that remind me of waves. They hold double sided coins that I punched from a scrap I used to test my ink/crayon colors and stencils I was using on the project. Waste not, want not.

There's lots of space to journal on the tags. I used a scrap of collage paper to decorate one of the tags and  Tim Holtz old Bigz and newer Thinlits dies to make little pull tabs on the tags. Some were cut from a blue inky scrap I had on hand and others cut from the initial cheapo scrapbook paper experiment. I used parts of Tim Holtz stamps and old Remnant Rubs to label them.

The paper I used on this side of these tags was one of my first monoprint experiments from years ago using a weird tree stencil. The greens tied right in with my Brusho papers, especially when I dipped them in some Distress inks  and added some stenciling and the Halloween lacey collage paper scraps.

What a fun and quick project this is! I love the design of the folio with it's six pockets and two tuck spots; the finished piece is 6 x 3.25 inches. 

I'm listing some of my products more for my own reference:

Distress Oxide: Wild Honey

Distress Ink: Mowed Lawn, Uncharted Mariner

Distress Archival Ink: Black Soot, Faded Jeans

Distress Crayon: Picked Raspberry

Distress Paint (on charms): Lost Shadow

Distress Translucent Grit Paste

Tim Holtz Mini Stencils

Tim Holtz Dies: Bigz Tiny Tabs and Tags, Thinlits Specimen

Stamps: Prima: Net and Wire; Tim Holtz: Glitch 1, Perspective, Sealife, Tiny Text

I would like to share my folio with Simon Says Stamp in their Not A Card Monday Challenge. Thanks for stopping by!