X-Press It Glues: Art Journal Cover

This week I got to play with some trusty X-Press It favourites, but with fancy new packaging!!  Clear Gel and TripleTac Glue are two of the three most used products in my creative space, behind X-Press It 6mm Double-Sided Tape… and today I put them to tried and tested use in building a cover for my latest X-Press It Mixed Media Journal.  Here they are in all of their new packaging glory:

Given this will be a journal that I will fill with Mixed Media I opted to let the cover tell of the intended contents and mixed papers, tapes, paint, ink and other odds to bring this cover to life, starting with some FabScraps Papers and vintage papers from an old cross word dictionary… which is fun to use especially if you pull out pages with words that relate to your project:

The cover of the Mixed Media Journal is very thick book board, which makes a great base for a lot of wet layers, I started by securing strips of vintage paper and Hazel & Ruby Washi Tape with X-Press It TripleTac Glue:

Then it was time for layers of little strips of patterned paper, which you can see in this picture if you look closely behind the gesso which I layered over the top:

Then it was time to build paper scrolls by rolling strips of vintage paper on an angle and securing them with TripleTac Glue:

These little beauties are great for making all sorts of flowers, but today I fashioned them into a heart, because I wanted this cover to speak of "Heart for Art":

The scrolls take on layers nicely too, so I opted for some texture paste coloured with paint and pushed through a stencil, with lots of ooze, mess is good for mixed media.  It took the stencil to the background in places as well, and also added a little FabScraps sticker for a little more texture:

Next it was time to provide a little more definition to the heart, yellow paint and black outline pen make this easy, you can see the paint in this step and the pen in pictures that follow:

The it was time for some lettering, I hunted around in my stash and had trouble finding letters in the right colours, but managed the "heart" in glossy white plastic letters, which I added texture to by covering with dabs of gesso… used gesso also on the VRT s well, to cover the lime green lettering and get it ready for the grey paint… notice the upside down V in this photo… close enough to an A, I say! Clear Gel Glue is my trusty stick anything friend:

And then for a little final touch, I made these little flower petals from some baby wipes that I used on a previous project to wipe back some paint, they were nice and crunchy and cut well to form this little circle layers which are edges with liner pen:

The flowers were pieced together and to the project with Clear Gel Glue, including the little bead centres, to finish off the journal cover… a little messy introduction to what will no doubt come when I get to test a few more X-Press It products on the inner pages:

Here are the products I used today:

X-Press It Mixed Media Journal

X-Press It TripleTac

X-Press It Clear Gel Glue

FabScraps Papers & Sticker

Atelier Free Flow Artists Acrylic Paints

So get started with your Mixed Media Journal by making the cover speak to what you hope to fill it with, use what you have, it will come to life with X-Press It Glues as the champion that brings all things creative to a finish line… enjoy!

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