A Little House Book

Hello, Lora here having fun with all the wonderfulness that is Gypsy Soul laser Cuts!
This week I have been playing with the Mini House Album and have turned it into a cute, odd little book. It doesn't really have a theme except that it's got a lot of interesting little characters and there is a lot of the color green. I just played with the pages and let them be whatever my imagination wanted them to become.

 For scale, here is a picture of it in my untidy, paint spotted hand.

And some pictures of the inside bits.

I am going to highlight a technique in this post as I am going to assume (this once) that most folks who look at this blog have used either Mod Podge or Matte medium before and that is how all the papers are attached to the substraight, which is the Mini House Album.
Here is where I began, by cut and gluing all the papers to the front and back of each 'page' and then measuring where I wanted the holes punched for binding the book together.

The technique I am going to show is a simple one, but I get asked about it when I teach a class so I am going to show you here.
I you look at the pictures above of the finished book, you'll notice that the key shapes and sometimes the borders on the background papers are dark around the edges to define and edge, draw the eye and make a feature object stand out a bit more.
What I like to do is use a Stabilo pencil that is what they call "Aquarellable" which basically means it is soluble when liquids are applied to it. That can mean water or any type of liquid media like matte medium or glaze.

In the photo above I have used it to draw around the edge of the paper ruler border I glued on to the background paper of the house.
In the photo below, I have used matte medium and a brush to activate the pencil and it darkens and smudges, creating a blurred edge that makes the ruler pop a bit.

You can also use watercolor pencils in the same way. If you use matte medium or glaze, the color stabilizes and cannot be activated with water or any other wet medium and that allows you to paint, draw ink or whatever you choose to do on top of the pencil or watercolors. Many thanks to artist Karen O'Brien for sharing her watercolor/matte medium technique which lead me to the Stabilo Auquarelle pencil!
I really like using the Stabilo pencil because I like the gray black fuzzy edges it makes, but feel free to experiment with what ever you choose.

In this picture (above) I have use the same technique on the edges of the torn paper in the mid-racge and the bottom edge of the house.

Here is the completed panel. I may have been a wee bit enthusiastic with my pencil, but it's so dang fun to play with. Hope you have fun trying it too!

SUPPLIES: I used a mixture of bits and pieces from various Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts kits and individual pieces which are listed below;

Mini House Album
Decorative Windows 1 to 24
Mini Bird Cages
House Jewelry Pieces
Creepy Corners (for the spider)
Printers Ornament Corners
Tiny Number Plates

Additional Supplies:
Collage sheets ( used a lot of Sandy Gordon's Art Tea Life digital collage images on this piece)
Stamperia Patchwork Scrapbook Papers
Acrylic paint
Matte Medium
Stabilo Aquarellable Pencil
Brilliance Ink Pads in Galaxy Gold, Rocket Red Gold, Pearlescent Thyme
Stickles Diamond Glitter Glue
Waxed Line thread
Wooden beads