Four Season's Altered Children's Book

Today I wanted to share the Four Season's Altered Children's Book I made. The book it's self started out life in the hands of little ones. Just a glossy, heavy board book like you'd find at dollar stores, discount stores, just about anywhere really. You can find them in all shapes and sizes which just adds to the fun. (NOTE: I didn't take photos of the book in process so I'm using photos of adding ink to another board book I'm working on. The methods are the same, just the colors & shape of the book is different. )

There are many different ways to apply alcohol inks to your glossy board book projects but I'm going to share my two favorites with you. Before you begin you need to think about what you're going for in the end...do you want to cover the images/text almost completely or do you want more of the images & text peeking through on your finished product. The two methods I'm going to share today cover the text & images virtually completely. Something to keep in mind is even if you don't get the images completely covered you can stratigically place your other embellishments, stamped images & photos where needed.

The first method is to apply the inks directly to your board book...when I'm working on a large area like this I squirt the inks right onto my page. For this example I used Stream, Pesto and Copper Metal Mixative.

Metal Mixatives are key when you want to cover all of the text & images. Alcohol inks are somewhat translucent so unless you add the Metal Mixatives the text will show through.

Once you have your inks squirted onto your page simply start pouncing the Ink applicator around in the inks. This will take a bit of blending but once you get your inks spread around in a nice even coat you will see how well it covers - No more piggy!

One key factor to remember - DO NOT ADD INK BLENDING SOLUTION!!! The Ink Blending Solution spreads the ink out and will uncover everything you just covered up!! IBS is great for lots and lots of techniques but it's definately NOT needed/wanted for this technique!

The next method I use quite frequently is to apply Gesso to my project before adding the inks. This is great for adding texture to your projects and the alcohol inks cover perfectly!

Apply the Gesso to the entire surface. You can work the gesso into many different textures - for this one I made large brush strokes in many different directions...you can see this in the photo (the gesso is still wet - that's why it's so shiny).


When working with a gesso'ed surface, I apply the inks to my Ink Applicator. Simply apply to your felt piece & blend away!

This method takes quite a bit less time because you're starting out on a blank slate so to speak...you're not actually trying to cover anything up. Just applying color over the gesso.

You can see where the Copper Metal Mixative was use and where it wasn't....I just did this to show the contrast between AI & Gesso vs. AI, MM & Gesso. I like both and think they each have their uses.




4 SEASONS

Supplies: Adirondack Alcohol Inks - Ranger; Ink Applicator & Felts - Ranger; Metallic Mixatives - Ranger; Posh Accents Copper Pen - Ranger; Black Embossing Ink & Powder - Ranger; Rubber Stamps - Hero Arts; Autumn Leaves; Fancy Pants; Paper Studio; Wordsworth; Penny Black; Ephemera

SPRING

SUMMER

AUTUMN

WINTER

Hope you enjoyed the book and give it a try. Alcohol Inks are great fun and really easy to master once you start playing with them. I will be sharing the Seasonal Frame embellishments with you tomorrow...they are a fun way to incorporate definitions into your design!

Till then...Ink on my friends - Ink On!!!