December Daily 2012 - Cover

Finally managed to tackle and take care of my 2012 December Daily cover. 

Here is a look at the finished cover

and the embellishment piece up close

I really like the 6x8 size so I decided to use a Studio Calico Chevron Handbook as my album this year.  The albums come pretty raw so I opted to paint mine.  I did a quick scratch layer of leftover ivory paint from last years cover and let that dry.  I then applied two coats of Martha Stewart Pea Pod Satin Acrylic paint.  You have to be really careful when painting this album because a) if you go to thick you will loose some of the embossed design and b) its easy to miss all the little peaks and valleys.  I did go back over once the last coat was dry to fill in some tiny spots that I had missed.  I also painted the inside of the album but I forgot to take pictures.

There is a little bracket space on the album cover but it wasn't quite large enough for what I wanted to do so I created my own using my Cameo.  I cut a label shape three times out of thin-ish chipboard.  You know the stuff you get backing your scrapbook paper orders, nothing too thick.  I glued them together and weighted it down until it was dry.  I then painted it with a fairly thin coat of light pink acrylic paint.  This was simply as a backup for my next step, in case any of the base showed through.

Once the paint was dry I covered the whole piece in a pretty descent layer of Glossy Accents.  I covered the whole piece with glitter that I got at Joann's, the color is Bubble Gum. It's a light pink, white and iridescent mix.  It's with the cheap glitter, nothing fancy here.  I let it sit for at least an hour and then dumped off the excess glitter.  Here is a shot of the piece covered in glitter, I dumped the entire container on just to make sure it was completely covered.

I saved the excess and put it back in the container and it looked like I ended up using about 1/3 of the original quantity, way less than I thought I would use.  It was really rough to the touch and glitter was falling off, plus I was worried how my next pieces would stick so I decided to add another thin layer of the Glossy Accents over the top using a foam brush.  I made sure it was really thin, just enough to cover and capture all the glitter.  I let it dry over night and it came out just fine.

The next part took some time, deciding what I wanted the date to look like and what fonts to use and what colors.  This is the stuff I agonize over, I usually know if something isn't right (to me that is) and just have to let it sit until I come up with something that works for me.

I cut the 20 out of POW Jade Glitter paper on my Cameo and cut the twelve out of Best Creations Gold glitter paper and mounted it with foam tape so it was raised a bit.  The little 25 piece was cut from POW Glitter paper in gold.  I sized it to fit exactly in the space of the gold shipping tag. 

I punched a hole in the bracket and hung the shipping tag using a cut and modified little Tim Holtz paper clip.

I have not glued the pink bracket down just yet, I still want to spray a clear coat over the whole album but its raining here so that has to wait until we dry up.  Once its sprayed and dried I'll glue the bracket piece down with either hot glue or glossy accents, not sure yet.

As soon as my kit comes in from Kelly Purkey I'll get started on the inside pages.  Hopefully that will happen next week.  The cover is always a tough one for me and doing something this different is a stretch for sure but I like that its different and like that it doesn't look anything like my previous three albums.

I'm definitely looking forward to another year of documenting our December so I'll be posting regular updates next month for sure