Today I'm going to share with you a 'one hit wonder'. This is my acrylic Christmas album, taught just ONE TIME, in South Carolina last month. Typically I post these pictures just for my students to see in a private gallery, but this time, I thought I'd share it with everyone since the holiday is fast-approaching.
What is special about the acrylic album classes that I teach is that I take Copic Markers and use them for everything but stamped images. I truly want you to understand the multi-surface versatility of this ink.
So we are going to break it down, from the complete album, to each individual page/side and talk about the details too. Ready? Let's get started!
The album base is an acrylic 'waterfall style' book from Clear Scraps. It's called an acrylic Mixed Up book. It has different shaped edges for each page. I love the visual interest this creates.
This book uses papers from Graphic 45's holiday line. I had a specific challenge – teaching a class in South Carolina, I needed to avoid SNOW and snowflake-themed winter pages. These were perfect for what the store owner requested – a Victorian-themed Christmas album.
All of the embellishments are from Prima.
Speaking of embellishments, I always tend to do a lot of embellishment on the first page, and all of the edges. This way you can get the most bang for your embellishment buck – being able to see all of the glitz and bling even when the album is closed.
To start, I used an upholstery trim for the ring-bound edge. I also chose to hang a Prima ornament embellishment from a metal star charm, threaded through one of the rings. Self-adhesive pearls from Prima's E-Line are placed randomly on the scalloped edge. The entire page is edged in Copic airbrushing using E55 – my general purpose vintage-r color. Add a bit of 'age to that acrylic surface and dull down the shine a bit.
Take a close look at the ornament embellishment. This was colorless in the package, so I added color with my Copic Markers. But you don't want to get glitter all over your marker nib, so color the ornament ON THE BACK side. The color shows through and leaves the glitter where it belongs. I added a bit of color to the leaves surrounding the flower as well.
On the inside of the front cover we take advantage of the double-sided nature of embellishments placed on a clear surface. If you wish, you could apply a medium, such as Glossy Accents, over the pearl placements on the front side to give them dimension on this side of the page. Nothing lke a bit of dual purpose in an embellishment.
When I choose paper to work with for an acrylic album, I'm always on the lookout for three things:
- double-sided patterns
- geometric shapes with symmetry
- mirror images
These lovely angels were printed on the page twice, with a mirror image. This allows me to place these little darlings right over the backside of their counterparts on the front of the page.
The front side of page two is pretty simple. The patterned paper is gorgeous, so I let it take center stage. I added a white poinsettia at the lower right, which peeks out from underneath the front cover of the album when close. Always use the waterfall page prior to aid in your placement of embellishments below.
Taking a closer look at the poinsettia, you will see a bit of airbrushing and penwork. The flower was PURE WHITE and glitzy looking. Not the least bit Victorian. I added A bit of E55 to add age, and R89 to add a bit of color to the stamen centers and the edge of the petals. I love anything white, or silver or clear – because we can change the look of it entirely.
The other side of this page shows off the nice peppermint stripe. But to add some visual interest, I placed a transparency over the top and colored the braided detail with my Copic Markers. The colors are translucent, so if you look closely, you'll see the striped design of the paper underneath the colored braid. It's a nice subtle effect.
Lift up the transparency, and place your pictures underneath, peeking out from behind the frame. A thin line of Fabritac adhesive, hidden under the printed 'braid' will close it up.
The next page utilized the double-sided punch-out pieces from the tag sheet to make picture frames and niches. I also dressed up the edge of the page with larger self-adhesive pearls along the scallop and airbrushed a bit of G28 because it matched the paper so well, especially with that same E55 airbrushed all around the edge.
I've left the top of the outside frame loose for placing a picture inside the niche.
And here is the airbrushed detailed edge.
The other side of the paper on the reverse of this page creates a pretty niche too.
I love airbrushing over stencils. The Ironworks stencil kit from Tattered Angels had the perfect look for this page. I used R89 to airbrush softly into the edge of the page. A coule of double sided frames / niches are in place again.
With self-adhesive crystals placed over the top of the airbrushing. Isn't that pretty?
The reverse shows the opposite side of the double sided paper niches / frames. You can see how one of these acrylic books can be made rather quickly, with all the do-it-once/see it twice that you get from the clear surface.
This page has the cute little angel and sentiment along one side. A neat trick for getting that perfect 'postal' or inverted scallop cut, is to trace the page and then use a circle punch, inverted so you can see placement, to cut out the pieces. A light airbrushing over an Ironworks stencil in B21 adds to the angelic feel of this page. A snipped of design from the transparency sheet is colored to add the doves to our page.
On the reverse side, the Ironworks stencil is at work again, with E55 airbrushed over the top to add interest to a rather plain patterned paper design. Everything else flows through from the front side.
The last page finishes the book with a bang; with a combination of transparency, airbrushing and niche/frames. Coloring on transparency involves layering color on either side. You can't blend colors on top of one another. If you try to add a color to the top of another color, on a true non-porous surface like this, it just wipes the prior color off. (my usual Karate Kid, 'wax on. wax off.' moment in class!). Alcohol ink removes alcohol ink. So to get a pretty layered look on the greenery, I applied G28 to the top of the leaves, and then flipped over the transparency and placed YG97 on the other side where I wanted some shading. Seperate, but equal. Not blending, but LAYERING of color. It dries quickly and you have such a pretty, translucent effect.
The Tattered Angels compass stencil fit perfectly over the clock face, so I airbrushed it over the acrylic. The niches can be double sided, if you use the punched out centers as a guide to cut your photos – then the back of the album will have photos on the reverse side of this page as well. Here's a hint, place the photos under the transparency, sandwiched back-to-back to protect them from getting scratched, most notably on the outside cover of the book. Let the acrylic shield them.
I hope you have enjoyed this Copic Christmas Acrylic Album. For those who were in my class in South Carolina – I cannot wait to see your finished books (with pictures!) from your Christmas celebrations.
We've got a week to go. I'm going to do my best to keep the blog moving all the way to New Year's Eve with little projects here and there.
Speaking of little projects, somehow I've been tapped to decorate the bulletin boards in the 4th grade hallway at my kids' elementary school… so I'm off for the day.
Type to you soon.
~SL~
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