Travel book covers USA

Hi it's Brenda here with you today and I'm sharing the covers I made for a sketchbook to take on holiday to America, more a mini scrapbook I suppose you would call it.

I began by cutting the card to size, measuring out three stripes and edging with artist tape, then painted with phthalo blue, pyrrole red and titanium white.

This tape is quite stretchy and doesn't give a perfect straight line - but 'embrace your imperfections' and all that.

Oh and I found my red and blue sharpie markers neatened up the edges just fine.

Wanting a more aged look I dipped the panels in burnt umber watery wash, drying between each dip and when dry gave them a coat of antique decoupage.

Now to build further layers - a large text script and distress embossing powder ......

........ and embellishments - Tim' faded glory flag, triple cut in card, layered together and embossed with distress embossing powders .....

...... USA stamped from mini blueprints 2, dipped in watery phthalo blue media acrylic paint and coloured in with distress markers .....

....... die-cut stars embossed with frantage shabby white embossing powder .....

.... and the spine is a piece of jointer's drywall tape sealed with black gesso, stamped with one of Andy's toxic set stamps in titan buff then given washes of phthalo blue, pyrrole red, paynes grey and burnt umber.

I sanded the edges of the covers and blended ground espresso ink around them and put it all together with some shabby ribbon, stained with distress inks, to keep it tied and closed.

A quick shot of the back and front of the sketchbook.

Now I'm looking forward to seeing it completed, I need to get those photos printed off.

If you get a moment to pop over to Bumblebees and Butterflies you will see another two made by my granddaughters.

Don't forget we have a stencil challenge on at the moment on the challenge blog. We'd love to see you there.

Enjoy the rest of August - the months just keep rolling on by.

hugs Brenda xxx