Grab a Pencil! New Project!

THANKS!

First, Thank you all for your wonderful comments on the Altered Box. WOW! You all are FANTASTIC and your comments are truly inspiring to me! Thank You ...Thank You!

Getting Crafty!

I'm feeling crafty! When am I not? But when it hits hard, ya gotta roll with it huh? So, I'm rolling up my sleeves and starting a new project tonight...Hope you will follow along...

Continuing with the organization theme .... to be honest, finding new places to hide stuff theme, still on my mind I wanted to make a stack of drawer-ed books to keep odds and ends in...

So here we go...Probably just blog about the spine tonight as it's pretty intense! But dont let that scare you!....

I want to make a stack of three books. I will do this step for all three books.

For the first (top) drawer I cut a piece of chipboard and I dipped in in a bowl of hot water. Pretty wet but not too wet!

Then I grabbed a bottle (Topo Chico, My Favorite Mineral Water!) and molded the chip over the length of the bottle.

I then tightly wrapped the bottle/s with paper and taped it to secure the hold.

Now you can do either to things here. (I've done them both on many projects that I hope to show y'all one day.) You can either let it sit for a day and let it dry COMPLETELY, or you can do the dangerous thing that I did...ADD HEAT BABY!

But, disclaimer here....Do I need a disclaimer? Here it is anyway, because I don't want any fires or anyone getting hurt!!! LOL!...BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN FOLLOWING ANY OF THE NEXT STEPS! STAY WITH YOUR PROJECT PLEASE!

To speed up the process, take your empty bottle with the chip on top, place it on a cookie sheet and "bake" on 200 for about 10 to 20 minutes, checking often to make sure your not burning the house down! Folks, when I get in the kitchen, things BURN! Seriously! :)

Now, when you pull it out you may think it's dry, but paper and moisture can fool you! It's not dry! It will continue to curl or flatten for hours! Just make sure you keep it on he bottle to "preserve the curve." Now, that's one way to add heat.

Here's my favorite way... Because I'm always in a rush.

Take the wet chipboard, mold it over the bottle, get you heat tool and begin drawing the moisture out. Flip it, dry it, flip it, it dry it. Remember to maintaining the curve.

Ok, now when you think it's dry, turn it over with the curve up. Opposite of the picture above, and heat it moving your heat tool up and down the length of the chip not stopping in one place too long. You will start to see that the curl continues to...well..curl. Cool huh?

Now, grab a paper plate or a plate with paper toweling on it and lay the piece curve side up. Place the plate in the microwave. For my microwave, I heated it for 1 minute (Once again, BE CAREFUL! I just know this worked for me and my microwave but have no idea how this works for others.)

This completely draws out the moisture from inside the core of the paper and "sets" it!

Hard as nails and ready for patterned paper! Ok, enough with the drying! Let's get to the fun stuff!

-------------NEXT----------

I marked off several points equally along the spine.

Next, I cut thin strips of grungeboard the width of the spine and glued them on with Glossy Accents.

The next step, I added tape to the top and bottom on the back side and cut my spine paper.

I turned the piece over and applied tape to the top, each side of the ribs and the rib piece itself.

OK...I was in the zone when I was doing these next steps and completely forgot to take pictures! So Sorry! I will try and explain....

I scored my spine paper a 1/2 from the top, pulled the backing from one end on the back side and folded the paper over to the front. I then pulled all the tape backing from the front side. I slowly worked my paper down on the first tape, then to each of the other tapes A bone folder is essential to really work the paper onto the tape and into the folds forming the decorative ribs on the spine.

Next, I added tape to the backside edges and folded the paper over and onto the back, mitering the corners. Once that was done I cut another piece of patterned paper a 1/4 inch smaller that the spine piece added tape around the edges and down the center and adhered it to the back.