Toadally Love To Craft: Steampunk Mini Envelope Album

Do you ever make a project that you are totally surprised by?

This is one of those projects for me...I started out having NO idea what I was doing.

Honestly, I was a little intimidated.

I couldn't be more happy with the way my mini album turned out.

My mini album started out looking like this.

(I made the cover a tad bit bigger than the envelops that I used for the inside pages) The cardboard is from a cereal box. I sprayed the cardboard with Craft Bond and put it on the paper.

I cut each one of the corners off the front and back covers, wrapped the paper around and glued it down. Then I took the skinnier piece put it pattern side down, aligned the front and back covers on the sides and adhered them together to make a book.

I hope I haven't totally confused you with those instructions.

Once I had the book formed made, I covered the entire thing with Duct Tape. Then I put those little bumps all over using my hot glue gun. That's right...the bumps are just little hot glue beads. After the beads were done cooling I painted the cover with 2 coats of Gesso. (Let dry between each coat)

I have a step by step tutorial with lots of pictures on making a cover similar to this one HERE.

While I was waiting for the Gesso to dry, I used this THIS video to create the mini album binding.

Now that the Gesso is dry, we are going to have some fun with egg shells!

This was another first for me. A crafty friend had mentioned this tutorial over at Such a Pretty Mess. There's so many possibilities with this!

To start you have you soak your egg shells (you want them to be big pieces...like you just cracked them open and have 2 halves) in warm water with a couple drops of Dawn dish soap for awhile. ( I soaked them for a couple hours while I was doing other things). Come back and gently peel the lining out of the shell. (For pictures refer to THIS tutorial from Such a Pretty Mess)

After I peeled the lining out I let the eggs dry. When the shells were all dry I started adding them to the cover of my mini album. You start by putting adhesive on your project. Then you grab a chunk of egg shell and push it with your finger. It will crack and lay flat on the adhesive.

When I was done attaching egg shells, I let the cover sit so the adhesive could dry. Then I added one more coat of Gesso over the entire cover (egg shells included) and let dry.

P.S...I found those little nut thingys in my husbands stuff in the garage. I adhered them with E6000.

While the Gesso was drying I started working on the journaling cards and envelope pages.

Journaling card front...

back...

2nd journaling card front...

and back. I used hot glue to attach the metal pieces and bow to the journaling cards.

I painted the cover with copper paint. It took a couple coats to cover it completely. After it was dry I sprayed it with Heidi Swapp black color shine spray

and took my heat tool to it for a bit. Then I dabbed off the extra with a paper towel and let sit over night. Really, this should dry for a few days, but I am not patient enough to wait a few days. Instead I just dealt with getting black stuff on my fingers whenever I touched the cover.

The zipper started out white. I sewed the zipper to some card stock and then tore off the edges. Then I hot glued nuts to the paper and painted it metallic copper (Hand Made Modern brand paint). Once the paint was dry I inked the edges and the zipper with StazOn Jet Black ink.

Then I attached it to the cover.

I used My Bestie image Scan00062 for the cover. She is colored her with Spectrum Noir markers.