Finding Atlantis Steampunk Journal

This month there are a lot of exciting projects happening over at Eileen Hull's blog! Have you heard of Sizzix Paper Leather and Inksheets? The Inspiration Team has been playing with these great products all month and wowie, there are cool projects to be seen over there.

I created a nautical steampunk themed journal using the Passport Book die. This is going to be part of a much larger project. I have been (very) slowly working on a Configurations Book – steampunk with a 'searching for Atlantis' twist. You can see two other posts about parts of it HERE and HERE. Let's take a look at the journal! (This is a long post, lots of photos! I'll have a tutorial about using the Ink Sheets after all the project photos so hang in there.)

front

The cover is made from embossed brown Paper Leather (two layers glued together) with black Inksheet details (Instructions following. The spine is also Paper Leather covered with copper foil.

back

The inner pages are all cut from white Paper Leather, colored with Tea Dye Distress Ink using the Wrinkle Free Distress technique, and then stamped using various brown and black Ranger Archival Inks. I thought about taking a photo of the enormous pile of stamps I had out for all these inner pages but figured this post was long enough already lol.

The octopus image is made using a die and white Inksheet! The Inksheets act like a resist on your substrate and allow you to use thin dies like stamps! Instructions following…

I also discovered you can use stencils with the Inksheets. On these pages I used the Bare Branches stencil and a gold Inksheet to impress the branches onto the page (plus it acts as a resist!)

I've added bits of "ephemera" into the journal, like the author clipped in letters, sketches, maps and specimens.

Almost done!

So now you may be wondering about how to use the Inksheets. As you can see, you can achieve some really interesting effects with them. If you buy the Starter Kit, you will get the adapter plate to use in the Big Shot, Inksheets, and some dies. They also come in packs of five in various colors.

Method 1: Using a die. Sandwich is base, Inksheet adapter plate, substrate (white Paper Leather page in this case), Inksheet - matte side down, die - cutting side down, regular cutting pad (not shown). The die makes an impression in the paper and transfers the ink to the paper! Since I did white on white here, it didn't show up much until I added the brown ink. The Distress Ink didn't stick to the Inksheet so it makes a great resist. (see the finished page #1)


Method 2: Using an embossing folder. Here I am showing the following sandwich: base with the red tab, adapter plate, embossing folder with paper and Inksheet (matte side down) inside, and regular cutting pad. Later I had a light bulb moment and realized I can just use the regular sandwich for embossing folders and not mess with the adapter plate. Either way works fine.

Method 3: Using stencils. The stencils are thinner than dies so I didn't need the adapter plate. The sandwich is base plate, cutting pad, substrate, Inksheet matte side down, stencil, cutting pad (not shown). You can see another project where I use stencils and Inksheets HERE.

So now we've gone from this:

(I added a fifth set of pages!)

To this:

I used doubled up, heavy button hole thread to bind the pages into the cover. I also only used two sections of the spine because I didn't need the journal to be so thick. Did you realize you can adjust it to your needs? ;-) I first threaded the signatures (pages) and then passed the ends through the holes in the spine. There are different ways you can bind these. I just tied off the threads using square knots and braided the tails on the top knot.

Whew! That was an epic post. If you are still reading you should get a prize! Be sure to check out Eileen Hull's blog to see what the rest of my team mates have been doing this month. Each week she has been posting some really exciting projects. We'd like to see any of your work too! You can share them on Eileen's FaceBook page.

Thanks for stopping by! I'm also entering this card into the SanDee & Amelie's Steampunk Challenge – March, Anything Goes. The supplies I used for this project can be found at Sizzix or Simon Says Stamp. Follow the links below and a shopping you may go. ;-)

Sizzix ScoreBoards XL Die - Book, Passport	Tim Holtz Sizzix Die SAND & SEA Bigz 659576	Tim Holtz Sizzix GLOBE Thinlits Die 660214	Tim Holtz Sizzix Die SPRING GREENERY Decorative Strip 659573	Sizzix STARTER KIT Inksheets 660541	Sizzix PAPER LEATHER SHEETS ASSORTED BASICS 8.5x11 Paper 661149
5818 Uffizi Arch Sketch	3491 Deep Sea Diver	5990 Shell Plate 10	4990 Ancient Nautical Map	4031 Mermaid Cradling Seal	6456 Daydreaming Mermaid Large
5401 Jellyfish	Stampers Anonymous Cling Rubber Stamps CLASSICS #1 SCF001	Tim Holtz Cling Rubber Stamps NAUTICAL BLUEPRINT cms194	*Tim Holtz Cling Rubber Stamps FRENCH MARKETPLACE Paris Stampers Anonymous	Tim Holtz Cling Rubber Stamps STEAMPUNK CMS107	*Stampendous Clear Stamps STEAMPUNK SHOES SSC1195
*Stampendous Cling Stamp GEAR HEAD Rubber UM CRM267	*Inkadinkado Stamping Gear BRANCHES Cling Rubber Stamps 65-32007 New 2012	Paper Artsy - Lynne Perrella Cling Mounted Rubber Stamp Set - 001	Prima Flowers DREAM ON Cling Stamp Finnabair 961992	*Memory Box GARDEN BARE BRANCHES Designer Stencil 88556	*Tim Holtz Sizzix BOOK COVERS Texture Fades Embossing Folders 657845
Tim Holtz Sizzix EYE CHART & FORMULAS SET Texture Fades Embossing Folders 659451	Tim Holtz Sizzix BLUEPRINT & GEARS SET Texture Fades 658580	*Tim Holtz Sizzix SPRINGTIME BACKGROUNDS & BORDERS Texture Fades 657491	Tim Holtz Idea-ology FOUND RELATIVES Portraits TH93121	Tim Holtz Idea-ology MINI PAPER CLIPS TH92791

InLinkz.com