Album - Shabby Chic

This chipboard album takes scrapbooking beyond the page and into home decor and it uses a few fun techniques including aging the design with a crackle pain medium which can be bought at good art and craft supply stores.

This album is from Kaiser Craft (product sb146)but you can use the same techniques on any album or even create your own using heavy card stock.

The skill in these albums is co-ordination, making sure the album blends together in theme and colors. This is easy to do by matching shades of colors together and sticking to a strict theme. Alternatively you can pick up a Scrapbook themed kit from your supply store and use the ready selected designs, stickers and embellishments making co-ordination very easy.

To start with you need to paint your album. If you are adding background paper you only need to paint the edges, if you are leaving it wood style you can try different techniques such as crackling. Crackle: To crackle a section of your album you will need to apply a thick coat of crackle medium to the plain wood and allow it to set as per the instructions on the Crackle medium bottle. Then go over the crackle with your pink paint. Work quickly and try not to overlap your brush strokes as this covers the crackle design. You will see it begin to crackle straight away.

Once it has dried your ready to continue with your album. Place your background paper onto the other board pieces mixing and matching your papers and layout designs.

Then using the supplies you have decorate your album, usually "less is more" is a crafters motto, but with this album it's almost "The more the merrier" when it comes to embellishing.

Once you are happy with your layouts bind your album together using wire rings or large curtain rings. Just thread them through the pre-drilled album holes.

Decorate the rings with knotted ribbons, cord and lace for a truly shabby rustic look.

  

By Shellie Wilson. Shellie is the chief creative editor for Craftbits.

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