Sunday, October 30, 2016

Metal Blog page for real

After practicing with the metal tape, Zoo and I were to do a page in our AAJ2 using this technique. I once again pulled out a variety of things from my collection and went to town. I wanted to use drywall tape, fun foam embossed to look like waves on the water, my tree punch and left over twig punches from Zoo’s punch. These things all reminded me of nature and the great outdoors so I figured I would do a camping theme. Growing up we did a lot of camping and fishing in remote areas and to this day, I love exploring in the woods, hiking, scrambling up and over hills and mountains (I dislike bugs a little more now though).











I started with the drywall tape diagonal across both pages, as the walking path. Then I added the road using my 1999 Lyuell Harlow LG611 Stone Wall brass embossing plate. This I experimented with in my Big Shot. I put the metal tape on strips of card stock, ran it through the Big Shot, and then applied it to the page using more metal tape. Being a very thin brass plate it and then layers of tape on top, it didn’t show a deep embossed effect but doable for this. I thought I needed a defining line between the path and the road so I used the beaded string to make the road edges. 











                  Next, I started on the lake. I used the fun foam with waves embossed in it (purchased at the Dollarama). I cut it to fit up in the corner and wanted to find something in my stash to act as a rocky shore. I had purchased, from the fabric store, a set of two 80’s patches with antique brass half domes sewn on them. They were 99 cents and so I bought one for myself and one for Zoo. They reminded me of the shoulder patches in the Michael Jackson era and made my day at the time. Zoo, of course, didn’t have a clue why I had bought them or what the heck to do with them when she received hers : )        They did work perfect for a rocky beach, though, so this page was making me smile all the way during the process so far!


 For the grass, I used a million twig punches. Zoo needed a twig punch for some Christmas cards we were working on a year or two ago and I found one at Walmart here and sent it out to her. Before I send it, however, I killed my hands by punching out a million of them for my use. Well, I used up almost my entire stash in this project. The grass is made up of many, many layers of the twig punches glued on and then taped over. I found that my double-ended embossing tool worked the best to bring out the desired texture. I love the grass. I guess I am a little bit of a tactile person and running my hands over the grass and other areas on this page feels cool.

The tree in the upper left corner is made with my Fiskars tree punch. It was too small so I cut out more of them and trimmed the branches off and added them to expand the branch system. It turned out cute. The page needed a little something so I added a van cut out of card stock and taped over. I attached it using foam dimensionals on the top and glue and the two metal brads (bought from Dollarama years ago – yes… I love the dollar store!!!). 

 

I painted it with the black paint a couple of times until it had the effect I wanted.


I must say, that I do love this page. I had my book standing up on my table with this page open for weeks. Playing with metal tape is fun and inexpensive. Zoo and I will have to do more with it in the future.



 Enjoy! Red Bear : )


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