Smash Cover

I bought a smash book over 4 months ago and have thought a number of times about actually using it.  I was a little uninspired as it's not my usual 'style'.  I like to get inky and dirty and layer etc, etc.  BUT the most wonderfully talented Cindy Porter (I'm so lucky she's my friend!) is on the Helmar Design Team and recently posted a tutorial using techniques I was a little familiar with, but with her own interpretations and an awesome result!!  All credit to Cindy for her amazing tutorial and inspiring me to finally do something!! Cindy's blog post is here.

Lucky for me I got to do this while Skype Scrapping with another gorgeous talented friend of mine - Fiona Butler, whom did the cover of her Smash Album at the same time!!

Here's a step by step on my Smash cover - using Cindy's technique as my base, and my little changes :-)

Before (with the plastic cover removed):

Remove the plastic and lay the book flat on your craft sheet.  Pour some Tacky Glue/PVA on the cover - nice and thick. Use a pallet knife to spread it around - and your finger to get ridges and texture...

Cindy used a candle to heat her tacky glue and get the 'soot' - I was too impatient so got out two (yes 2!) heat guns and heated my cover.  It bubbled and popped and shrank and did all sorts of interesting things!!

Then I added some Chipboard from Twiddleybitz, more glue, and heated again:

I then sprayed with a couple of green mists, and heated again:

Drying the mists as I went.  The darker areas are where the glue had shrunk and the mists soaked into the paper on the front cover.

When it was dry on the surface I added silver Inka Gold to bring out the lovely textures created by heating the glue.

And with the materials I used:

Ingredients:

Smash Journal

Helmar Tacky Glue

Claudine Hellmuth Multi Medium Gloss

Twiddleybitz Chipboard Title - "A Beautiful Life"

Twiddleybitz Chipboard - Long Flourish No Tail (FLOR022)

Viva Inka Gold - Silver

Lindy's Stamp Gang - Freaky Franken Lime

Crafty Notions Colorspray - Luscious Green

Pallet Knife and Heat Gun.

Thanks for stopping by - I hope you like my project - once again, thanks to the very talented and creative Cindy Porter!