Create with your own imagination... (by Corinne, GDT this month)

Hi Everyone and happy Wednesday!

I'm glad to guest design this month for Rubber Dance, as I have been invited to do it by Bibi after my last win, thank you again very much to all of you. Today, I'm going to share how I created the booklet you saw at the beginning of the month and its content, I hope you will enjoy this blog post, I'm thrilled to offer you a complete tutorial of it. 

In case some of you don't know me, here just a few words to start :)
I am Corinne Rollet aka Coco(folies) on craftyblogland, living in France in a small village of Brittany. I'm a more than happy mixed media crafter (full-time, yippeeeee), teaching classes and workshops in my local area mainly. This is the way of life I chose two years ago...  quitting my regular job (well-paid, but very boring :-D) to live my passion. I love sharing my techniques and meeting other crafty ladies. 

I have been also a proud designer for Crafty Individuals rubberstamps brand for several years now, and in the past a proud designer for Tando Creative and Katzelkraft too. 

I'm also the wife of a very patient man lol, and a mum of 5, from 27 to 10(x2) who make me really mad! But this is another story :) 😄

Just before the holidays, I was lucky enough to receive several new wonderful stamps from the shop, to guest design with them. And wow, I LOVED them all, so really wanted to feature them at the best!!

But time was missing to think deeply about what to do with them at first... So when preparing my survival craft kit lol before taking the road, I took with me only these precious stamps plus my watercolours paints as I wanted to practice a bit with them, brushes, a small tube of Gesso, a few stencils, some good oldies like black and brown archival inks fitting with everything and my precision scissors, and of course smooth quality watercolor paper. I had no plans, just wanted to have a bit of fun creating instinctively with my stuff, and trying to use some elements found into the places I would visit.

Here my make, a booklet totally made from scratch during my hols. Created with only very basic envelopes, watercolours, and bits and bobs found during my walks or visits. I hope you you will love it as much as me, and as the stamps deserve. 

Enjoy my tutorial!

On the cover: Merry Magpie and a few stamps from Textured Flowers.

Here's how it started

After climbing a vulcano, I bought a set of four beautifully illustrated animal postcards, in black and white. Decided it would be my starting point, Eureka!! :D

I took out four envelopes from a pack of simple envelopes.
I adhered to one another but taking the care to leave the openings, to insert some of the original postcards or future treasures maybe.

I stamped with my Archival inks (Potting Soil, Jet Black) the lovely Mama Owl and super cute Handsome Hedgehog on my watercolour paper and fussy cut them out. Then I had a lovely time watercoloring them in natural tones (blues, brown/red and grey mainly). 

At this stage, I had no precise idea of what to do with all that.

   

Looking at the postcards, printed on heavy glossy paper... 
I tried to watercolor them a bit; I was quite happy with the result, the colours looked bright and the paper resisted to the water! 

Therefore I decided to integrate my stamped animals with the ones sketched, thinking it could end up with a beautiful association. And that is indeed :-)

So I simply - very quickly - colored all the postcard images chosen to become the backgrounds with my watercolor paints (with the help of a few pencils too), just a little. If you try this too, be careful, don't insist too much to not damage the paper as such glossy paper supports a bit of water sometimes but not too much!

Here the result for one of my postcards 😊

Next step, I applyed Gesso over parts of a TH stencil... 

Once dry, I played with some blue paint watered down, as you can see below.

... and with orange, grey and black shades - sometimes with dripping - on the following pages. I must confess that I have been widely inspired by the combo of colours chosen this month for the October challenge, and also the one coming soon haha! 😍

After the appropriate drying time it was easy to decorate my envelopes with just a few strips of washi tapes and my four postcards. I chose to either directly glue them or slide them inside the openings, as it can be seen thereafter. 

The little dotted circles on the right page are from Textured Houses.

Next spread and postcard, featuring big mushrooms that I love!! 

My letters forming my 'Collect this' and some leaves or branch die-cuts added for further interest and a bit of dimension come from my stuff. To tell the truth, I found them only when back home :) Just watercolored them a bit as needed using the same paints than for the booklet, and glued them here or there for a beautiful finishing touch! 😄

Here the two next pages and postcards...
 

This last postcard was glued in place.

Look! Isn't Mama Owl wonderful, so full of life in these colours?... :)

Below, you can see the process for the cover. I used some scraps and free samples of watercolor papers to do it!

Finally, to decorate it, Merry Magpie was the perfect stamps set to me!! To go with it, I chose two real feathers found during my walks and a beautiful doily bought in the village of the Puy en Velay. This French village has been well know for ages for its exquisite laces and doilies, don't hesitate to visit it if you can, it is a wonderful place, very inspiring too!

 

And there we are, all done. I hope you have enjoyed my tutorial, this is the most fun and cute little book I've ever made. It just shows that you don't always have to buy a lot of expensive stuff... Just beautiful stamps like the ones I used, a few pencils or paints, and that's all you need, really. 

I'd love sharing and entering my booklet and tutorial into the Mini Albums Makers challenge, and also if i'm allowed to do it, into
Craft Stamper Challenge: Anything Goes.

Have a creative month with Rubber Dance, and don't forget the coming challenge in two days... you will see that my make today suits well the theme! :)

Thank you very much for looking today! xxx

Rubber Dance Stamps
Merry Magpie
Mama Owl 
Funny Fungi 
Handsome Hedgehog
Textured Flowers
Textured Houses