Saturday, May 5, 2012

Blessing and Prosperity…Faux Leather Cover

IC335 blk

Last weekend while visiting and working with Kelley at Our Daily Bread designs, I stopped at Hollo’s for envelopes….and left with just a bit more! It’s a fun place to check out if you’re ever in the area!

Anyhoo, while standing in the checkout line I saw a stack of plastic checkbook covers, a buck… oh, why not!

I love the look of tooled leather. My father used to do this kind of work. I remember a purse he tooled for my mom, very similar to this pattern!
Cardstock, some embossing and distress ink… and my faux leather insert was born!

IC335 faux frnt

Tricky to photo, so bear with me!

I started by cutting a piece of Kraft paper the size needed to fit in the plastic cover then embossed it using Spellbinders Flora M-Bossabilities in my Grand Calibur. I love these embossing folders, you get two designs in each one!

I had to run it through twice as the folder didn’t quite cover the entire piece, but I was able to line up the pattern pretty close.

IC335 mboss1 
Nice having the large area of the GC, it allowed me to emboss most of the paper, slide the folder over and emboss the rest. Since the folder and adapter plate didn’t make contact with what was already embossed I didn’t ruin what was done!

IC335 mboss2

IC335 mboss3

A slight pattern break but not enough to worry about!

Now the fun of making the Faux Leather! I started by sponging on some Tea Dye, then taking my Vintage Photo pad directly to the paper, hitting the high spots of the embossing. I then took my Walnut Stain and hit just a couple places. You might have to sponge some more depending on the look you want.

IC335 mboss4

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Take your Versamark pad (or other clear embossing ink) and smoosh it around real good over the entire surface. You want to make sure you get in all the nooks and crannies! Then sprinkle with clear embossing powder and heat set.

Voila! Faux Leather!!

IC335 faux clsup

I stamped Happy Retirement on water color paper with Versafine Onyx Black and embossed with clear ep, then using my ink pads (just squeeze the lid against the pad to pick up color), water colored my scene. I did the same for the verse, sponging both edges with Tea Dye and going around the edges with a marker. I also added some faux brads because I didn’t want real metal ones rubbing against the cover.

IC335 clsup

IC335 faux open

IC335 back

I finished the inside too, but not as detailed as you don’t see much of it.

IC335 inside

CkbookCover inside

A cool look with little effort!

I hope I’ve inspired you to try something different today!!

stamps: Happy Retirement-Our Daily Bread designs
paper: kraft, water color
ink: Versafine onyx black, Versamark, distress tea dye/vintage photo/walnut stain, various Adirondack pads for water color
other: Spellbinders Labels 25/Grommet Tags/Flora M-Bossabilities/Grand Calibur, Copic marker, clear embossing powder, plastic checkbook cover

Thanks for stopping!

Dawn

4 comments :

Joanne (jojot) said...

absolutely amazing....glad I stopped by so I could see exactly how you got your fantastic results...wowza, gf

Anonymous said...

What a fabulous project! I love the look that you were able to achieve in your faux leather technique. Thanks for showing all of the steps that went into making the cheque cover.

-dlm.

Sandy said...

Wonderful work and thank so much for the tutorial!
sandy

mel m. m. mccarthy said...

INKredible! It really looks like leather. I even have that same embossing pattern. Gorgeous and Genius!