Textured Book Covers using the Tangled Birch from Chocolate Baroque

I hope that you like my texture project for the blog today. I got the idea from one of Lesley Wharton’s demos on The Craft Channel where she used Brushos to make lovely background papers and book covers.

Materials:

• Tangled Birch stamp
• A6 (approx. 10.5 X 15cm) hard backed note books, scrap acetate, kitchen towel and cartridge paper
• Brusho’s and Ink Sprays (pinks and blues, some with mica)
• Starlight paints (with crushed gilding flakes) or metallic acrylic (gold and pink)
• White Gesso
• Mod Podge (Matte finish)
• Tacky acrylic glue
• Glitter glue (pink and gold)
• Alcohol marker (black or dark grey)
• StazOn Inkpad (Black)
• Microbeads (pink and turquoise mixes)

Summary of techniques:

1. The blue textured paper was created from waste kitchen towel initially used to mop up waste diluted Brushos from my craft mat. I spritzed on a bit more colour. When dry the towel was scrunched up and the layers separated.
2. The pink textured paper was created with thin cartridge sketching paper and ink spritzers, some with mica.
3. The papers were applied to the book covers using Matte Mod Podge. The wrinkles created a lovely texture. I sealed the blue tissue with Mod Podge on the outside too, and used both layers as it was quite translucent with just one layer. I left the pink textured paper unsealed.
4. When dry I rubbed over the surface with metallic acrylics to pick up and highlight the textures (using a little on my finger).
5. The Tangled Birch was stamped onto acetate with StazOn Ink. The back was then coloured with metallic acrylics.
6. When dry I added a layer of white Gesso. This made the translucent acrylic more solid and opaque. The image was cut out and glued to the book front with tacky glue.
7. Glitter glue was added to the image front. I used Pinflair glitter wands which work well on acetate. You may want to test this as some glitter glues may not stick well to acetate.
8. Microbeads were dropped into a thick layer of tacky glue for added texture.