Mixed Media Notebook Cover

I’ve had this notebook in my stash for ages and ages.  I have to confess, more often than not I buy “cheapo” notebooks and decorate them to look like a million dollars.  It gives me such pleasure to see something beautiful emerge. 

I started off by carefully loosening the binding wires and removing them and the plastic cover. I cut a cardboard cover to the exact size of the plastic cover and covered the cardboard with a good layer of gesso.

Next I die cut a few die cuts using the Tim Holtz mixed media set using heavy white cardstock and glued the pieces onto the cardboard cover.  

I also added some pieces of Tim Holtz washi tape.

I applied a good layer of texture paste onto the cover using a palette knife.

I sort of patted the palette knife into the texture paste in some places and in other places I used the texture paste with a stencil and left it to dry.

I used a little gesso to knock the washi tape back a bit and to bring everything together but wiped it back a little off the bezel and the bee. 

 

A bezel, a bee and some small coins from my stash were covered with a coat of gesso. I filled the back of the bee with gesso and left it to dry.  This took quite a long time because of the thickness of the gesso behind the bee. I glued the bee onto the bezel using Glossy Accents and then glued the bezel onto the cover using texture paste. Lucky I didn’t use glossy accents and you’ll see why later.  I also glued three coins onto the left-hand side and one coin onto the bottom right hand side. This pic was taken before I moved them.

  

I mixed Turquoises and Warm Yellow Acrylic paint with Liquitex Matt Medium into a paint palette and applied it onto different areas of the cover in using a wet wipe.

True to the way I art, I felt there was something missing so I removed the bezel and added a black trellis die cut behind it, then glued everything down again. Much happier with this.

The bee got a coat of orange paint with black stripes and black legs.

At this stage I felt the cover looked a little dull, so I added some black script stamping here and there [I most often use script stamps without a block so that I can control how much text is stamped. Dry brushed some white highlights on the raised areas.

The white brought out all the texture and I’m really pleased I did this step. It changed the whole look. I also ran my Potting Soil Archival Ink pad around the edges.

I lay the original plastic cover onto the new decorated cover and traced the binding wire holes using a black marker then punched them using this punch. I have no idea what it is called. Hopefully soon I will learn how to photograph white paper.

I added a sentiment and sprayed the cover using Spray and Shine.

Last but not least I threaded the binding wires back through the holes and closed them by pressing them together with my fingers. They can easily be closed with a pair of flat jewellery pliers.

Now I’ve got a notebook to write down all my "arting" ideas.

Supplies:
Cardboard
White Gesso
Texture paste
Palette knife
Stencil
Jet Black and Potting Soil Archival Ink Pad
Script stamp
Liquitex Matt Medium
Heritage Turquoise and Warm Yellow Free Flow Acrylic paint 
Wet Wipes
Tim Holtz mixed media die set
Lattice die 
A bezel, a bee and some small coins
Large flat bristle paint brush
Sentiment