I have a cool Pirate ship mini-album to share today. This project was inspired by @jiwonarts amazing boat she made a couple years ago: https://www.instagram.com/p/CspzzYRS-BZ/
I had planned to make this album last Summer, but DT work kept coming in and had to be prioritized. So I'm really happy I managed to find some time this year to finally make it and I hope it will inspire you.
Products:
Oddball family pets, Oddball mermaid, Mini oddball pirate & pug, Oddball fish, Mini oddballs building a sand castle, Mini oddballs playing in the sand (Stampingbella)
Give me candy (ALL & Create)
Ocean 5 (Carlacreaties)
Mine mine mine (Paperie Ink)
Sailboat die (Studiolight)
Circle infinity dies (Hero Arts)
Slimline woodsy background (Trinity stamps)
Sand and surf border dies (My Favorite Things)
Bah humbug, Ugh!, Wowzers and Good grief word dies (Whimsy stamps)
Treasure map (Whimsy stamps)
Treasure map (La-La Land Crafts)
Air traffic stencil (Honeybee stamps)
Cracked embossing folder (Tim Holtz & Sizzix)
Treat box Christmas add-on (Lawn Fawn)
Sentiments:
Party pirates: Yo ho ho and Arrr (Trinity stamps)
Pirate sentiments: Let's be pirates (Karen Burniston)
Mine mine mine: You're mine? (Paperie Ink)
Ahoy matey: You're a treasure (Lawn Fawn)
Critter Chatter Pets: Bloop Bloop Translation (Lawn Fawn)
Winter joy: Sealed with a kiss (Pink and Main)
High five: Mwuah (Ellen Essentials)
Ranger Distress inks: Antique linen and Walnut stain
Ranger Distress oxides: Tumbled glass, Scattered straw, Vintage photo, Gathered twigs, Scorched timber, Vintage photo, Ground espresso, Festive berries, Peacock feathers, Mermaid lagoon and Chipped sapphire
As I said earlier, I've had this project planned for over a year and I had accumulated a lot of pirate-related stamps, dies and even stencils. So, before starting, I spent quite some time deciding on what products I would finally use and whether I should mix some of the brands, especially for the images.
I had initially thought of using the Chou and Flowers Doudous as Jiwon did, but I also had the Stampingbella pirate girl and going through my stash, I found more Stampingbella that could complete the project and give it a coherent look. I then decided to also add the AALL & Create set, as even if the images are a different kind of strange, I think they still work together. I also added a couple stamps from Carla Creaties, with the shark and seal. Again, I think those are a great match. And finally, I added the cute seagulls from Paperie Ink which are quite neutral and still work with the other brands.
Once I was clear on the layout and content of the album, I started with creating the ship and its various elements, so I would have all pages and covers ready before creating the actual content.
I didn't have a pirate ship die (That would have been very convenient!), so I had to create something, with a shape simple enough to be cut by hand and still have a neat finish. I used my Hero Arts Infinity Circle dies to shape the ship hull and then hand drew the bow and stern. I created a template from Crafter's companion White multi-purpose heavy cardstock 300 GSM, so I could then draw around the edges to create a total of 10 pages, that I will assemble back to back, for a final 5-page mini-album.
As explained in below picture, the hull was creating, using a 4 7/8 inches circle die to trace the outline. I trimmed the top of the circle at about 2 7/8 inches. Next, I drew extensions on both sides for the bow and stern. I then used a 2 inches circle die to create the indent at the top, at 1.5 inches away from the bow end.
I actually started with the 4 inner pages and hand cut 8 ship shapes from white cardstock which I inked with Distress oxides Gathered twigs and Scorched timber, inking 4 shapes on one side and the 4 other on the other side. I then used the Trinity stamps Slimline Woodsy background and Scorched timber to add a faux wood effect, stamping the wood texture twice for more details.
For the front and back covers, I started from 2 panels of cardstock which I inked first with Distress oxide Gathered twigs before running it through my die cutting machine with the Tim Holtz and Sizzix Cracked embossing folder, to create a weathered wood effect. I then dabbed Distress ink Walnut stain and Distress oxide Scorched timber to darken the raised parts. I then pulled my template and drew the outline of the ship on one panel on one side and on the second panel on the other side, and then cut them. The reason I proceeded in that order is because the embossing folder shrinks the paper by adding creases and folds, so it is better to emboss before cutting the final shape with the correct size.
As explained in above picture, the waves were die cut with a 4.5 circle die. I then used 2 different border dies, from the Sand and surf die set from My Favorite Things, at 2 and 1.5 inches respectively.
I then created another template for the waves inside the mini-album, using a slightly smaller circle die and My Favorite Things Surf and sand die set for the wave border. I created two heights of waves to layer them and also adjusted the wave border to fit along the ship top edge. So in the end the waves shapes on odd and even pages are different. I also reserved 2 of them to customize as sand dunes as the second layer, for the inner front and back covers. To summarize, for the entire mini-album, I have 2 small dunes, 4 small waves, 6 big waves and 2 plain shapes which I'll use to create a treasure map.
On the waves, I blended Distress oxides Peacock feathers, Mermaid lagoon and Chipped sapphire.
On the dunes, I blended Distress oxides Scattered straw and Vintage photo and then splattered Distress ink Walnut stain with a few drops of water.
On the treasure map, I blended Distress oxides Scattered straw, Vintage photo and Ground espresso.
To create the treasure map, I used a couple stamp sets from Whimsy Stamps and La-La Land crafts which I stamped with Distress oxide Vintage photo. For the red cross, I used Distress oxide Festive berries. To finalize the map, I also traced the trail with a Staedtler brown liner through the Air traffic stencil from Honeybee stamps.
I adhered the first layers of waves and treasure map on the ship shapes with liquid adhesive. I also adhered the ships shape back to back for the two covers only. I am keeping the others separate for now as I will tuck in the characters later on, before sealing them.
To finalize the ship shape, I decided to add windows and portholes. I used a small window die from Lawn Fawn Christmas add-on for their Treat box and portholes from the Studiolight Sailboat die set. I die cut them from dark brown wood texture cardstock. For the window backgrounds, I inked a panel with Distress oxide Tumbled glass and then glued all the window and porthole frames onto the panel before fussy cutting around the frames. To make sure I would glue the portholes and windows in the same location on all pages, I decided to also die cut the porthole and window shapes directly on the template. I then used the template to glue the portholes through the holes on the front and back covers and two windows on each page, except the treasure map.
To finish the front cover, I glued the letters Arr!! from white cardstock and the same dark brown wood cardstock, from a few Whimsy stamps word dies (Bah humbug, Ugh!, Wowzers and Good grief). I layered the white letters on top of the dark brown letters to give them contrast and dimension.
For the mast, I used again the Studiolight Sailboat die set and die cut the mast 6 times from scraps of the Cracked cover pages and 6 times from the white heavy cardstock. I then assembled the 3 masts, gluing one cracked mast over a white one and then assembling them white on white, back to back to create sturdy masts. For the sails and flags, I used the dies from the set and die cut each 6 times from white and dark grey cardstocks respectively. I used a bone folder to flatten the edges, since I will be using both sides of the sails and flags, and needed to remove the print left by the die outline. I trimmed two of the sails for the front sail which is shorter, using the die to draw the bottom contour which I then cut with scissors. I blended Distress ink Antique linen around the edges of the sails. I then added a dot of liquid adhesive at the top and bottom of one sail and adhered it on the first mast, leaving enough space at the top for the flag. I then added liquid adhesive at the back of the sail and then 2 dots of glue at the top and bottom of a reverse sail and adhered it back to back to the first sail. I followed the same process to adhere the flag above the sail and then again for each of the two other masts. I then glued the masts at the back of a the ship page with Page 2 of the treasure map.
At this stage, I am still not assembling the inner pages back to back as I want to tuck in the characters before. To finish the mini-album structure, I need to punch two holes for the binding rings. Once again, I'm using the template to make sure the holes are placed consistently on all pages. I marked the two holes on the template with a pencil and used my We R Memory Keepers Crop A Dile Multi Hole Punch to punch the two holes. I then used the template to mark the holes on each page before punching them.
Now that the structure of the mini-album is ready, I can start customizing the content.
I stamped all the top images on white cardstock and also created mirror versions, to create the back of the characters.
For the backs, I stamped a second time the images with a more juicy ink pad to have really dark lines. I then used my light pad to trace the outlines at the back of the paper with a 3-mm Copic liner, and I then hand-drew the details inside the outlines, imagining what their backs could be. I then transferred the images onto the final paper, using Transotype 75g/m2, which is a thinner paper offering better transparency. I used washi tape to tape the Transotype paper over the hand-drawn backs and went over the lines with a 1-mm Copic liner.
I colored all the images with Copic markers. I glued the mirror images at the back of the original images with liquid adhesive, using again my light pad to position them perfectly. I fussy cut the images leaving a small white edge around the images, as well as a blank tab at the bottom to tuck them in between two boat pages. I then glued the images at the back of the hull. I finally adhered the hulls back to back using foam tape for the one with the masts and liquid adhesive for the two others.
I then stamped and colored the images appearing on the waves and sand, fussy cut them and adhered them with liquid adhesive, over or behind the small dunes or waves, and then adhered the dunes and waves with thin foam tape.
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