Tatty Old Book Make-Over...

Hi folks...I did indeed find something else to play with yesterday...a "killing 3 birds with one stone" mission to take my mind off the pesky sniffly nose...my disappointment at not being able to join in Timmie's Tag Fun and make a dent in the mountain of stuff that is currently cluttering up the cubbyhole but where to start was a bit of a dilemma. It had to be the old tatty paperbacks that were transformed into little works of sculpture recently...they were fast tracked to the top of the "to do" list seeing as they were taking up the most space...

and I had a little kachink moment when I remembered the 50% off bargain Tim Holtz bottle brush trees bought way back in January...

I had a sneaky feeling that this might well be a "going to be messy" session and I wasn't far wrong...I started off glueing 3 sheets of thick chipboard together to create a sturdy base...added torn and crumpled newsprint stuck down with Multi Medium and then gave it 2 generous coats of Gesso.

but it was looking a bit Plain Jane so after fixing the book in place...I went to town with a liberal helping of Frantage...amazing transformation with lots of bubbly embossing...fragments and sparkly glittery bits but oh boy that stuff loves to travel...it was everywhere...in fact the non-stick craft sheet was more Frantaged than the project at one point...

time to add some colour to the Bottle Brush Trees using a Mini Mister filled with water and a few drops of Re-Inker...a little word of warning if you don't want to end up with green speckled skin...make sure the nozzle of the Mister is pointing in the right direction before you let loose...

and I have to say adding the Frantage to the trees was a stroke of genius...aren't they so pretty and life-like... the trick was to dab my finger into PVA glue and pounce lightly on to the ends of the bristles...sprinkle with Frantage and heat lightly to set...

and that's as far as I've got...it's back to the DT stuff with a card to make for this month's challenge over at Penny Black Saturday but watch this space for the next instalment of the Tatty Old Book Make-Over.

Hugs Kath xxx