Handmade One Page Watercolor Journal Tutorial

Hi everyone!  It's time for a new challenge at A Vintage Journey and our hostess Amanda has chosen the theme Watercolour.  She says, "There is so much versatility in watercolour making it possible to create art that can be gentle, washy and light, or bold, full of colour and with definite lines. And it comes in a variety of guises: pans, tubes, sticks, inks, markers. So for this challenge we would like your projects to include some form of watercoloring or watercoloring techniques and be in keeping with our favoured styles: vintage; shabby; mixed media; art journaling; industrial, timeworn or steampunk."

I was very inspired to play along with the current topic at PaperArtsy and create some dramatic light and dark contrast with a one sheet wonder mini album, as inspired by THIS album on the LSG blog and the beautiful background work by Emma Godfrey found HERE on the PA blog.

I just had to figure out how to make this album when I first saw it.  I started with a sheet of 12 x 18 watercolor paper and scored every 4 1/2" along the 18" side.  I then scored it at 6" on the 12" side.  I cut three of the sections apart as shown above.  The paper can then be flipped into book pages when some are glued together.

I stenciled a Tim Holtz stencil  on the seams of my pages.

Next I made little canvas covers for my album by cutting canvas material slightly larger than my matboard covers.  I kept the covers the same size as my book pages, 4 1/2 x 6.  I applied ModPodge to the front and smoothed down the fabric, then glued the corners up like shown and glued the sides up tightly.  When the covers were glued properly, I gessoed the canvas.  It takes a lot of gesso to do this, but the result is a firm, sturdy wrapped canvas.

I decided to do a canvas spine too, but thought it would be fun to add some crocheted lace.  I folded the edges of my canvas the exact length of my covers and glued in place, then glued down a strip of lace and gessoed it the same way.

Here you see my completed components.  I glued the spine to the front of each cover with about a 1/2" overlap.

Now the fun part!  Creating my watercolor background.  I pulled a few LSG and Glimmer Mist sprays together to create my palette.

I sprayed the full sheet laid flat with water, then my sprays and let the colors bleed.  Next I stenciled a geometric pattern with black gesso.

I embossed a variety of PaperArtsy flowers in white and highlighted with more sprays.

I stamped smaller elements in Abandoned Coral and Worn Lipstick DI.  I stamped a toilet paper tube in white gesso and then scribbled my journaling in two sized pens.  I stamped the PA tiny numerals and then doodled the borders of my pages.  When my pages were complete I glued them together and into my book like the video shows.  This is really wild for me and completely out of my comfort zone, but was a lot of fun!

Here's a shot of that amazing lace spine.  I used paste to stencil the same geometric stencil on my cover, then gave it a good spray.  I stamped a PA flower and tucked it beneath my 3D Prima flower with some bundled string and a sentiment sticker.  I embossed two black die cuts and tucked them in too, with a final splash of white and black gesso on everything.

I really hope you are inspired to play along with our Watercolour challenge for a chance to win a £20 gift certificate to Craft Obsessions.

I'm also sharing with:

PaperArtsy: Topic 10 - Light to Dark, Contrasts
Simon Says Stamp: Splatter It!
Happy Little Stampers: Watercolor w/ Twist Bloom
Crafter's Cafe: More than One Fold
Day Dreamer: Always Anything Goes
Creative Craft Cottage: Anything Goes

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