Leather Suitcase - Tim Holtz die

The July workshop started off with assembling a leather covered suitcase album using Tim Holtz Valise die. I had been given a length of cream leather which I adhered to cardstock, embossed using an embossing folder then die cut.  Distress Ink used to colour the leather straps and RubnBuff for the corners. Brads and glue to add straps and handles.  As I had no time to prepare the sample I made mine along with everyone else on the day, not the usual thing for me at all and I am not that pleased with the result, must do better with the next one.  Still it was good to sit down now and then for a change.  Below is the finished sample. 

Leather covered suitcase album (sample)

I used different embossing folders for some of them, Annie made the one below, which I think is fabulous and I love the gold corners.

Annie

I had a bank of cut mixed colour cardstock ready to bind in the covers, using the bookrings.  Then everyone had a die cutting fest.  I provided all my dies and a couple of machines, others brought their own machines and dies and some swapped around and made as many die cuts as they wanted using some cardstock and chipboard provided and their own.

Next we used an embossing folder with a snowflake design with open area in the centre.  Ideal to use smaller images.  Perfect for small image stamps, copic pens to colour.  A touch of glitter on the embossed area as a finishing touch.  This is one of my favourite cards to make, simple and quick.

Cards using embossing folder

Oh forgot to mention the messy time we had with the shaving foam technique.  Paper plates were used with shaving foam, flatten the foam as much as possible and food colouring dripped and then swirled.  Card then laid face down and lifted, scraped and dried to give a colourful marble effect for use on backgrounds.  An old technique but one that some had not tried before.

Towards the end of the day I shared a technique I had discovered and it ended up with a request and a majority vote to do this at the next workshop.  Mmmmm get my thinking cap on and change around what I had previously prepared to do for that month.  I finally sorted out how we could use it and will give you details in the next post of how it came out at our August workshop.  More later....