Grungy Goodness -- Key to My Heart Box & Minibook

Let me start off by saying that I wasn't sure if "Grungy" was a word, and if it was how does one spell it? Grungey? Grungie as in Scrunchie? Well, you heard it here first "Grungy" is a word and that is how you spell it. (oh, and by the way, if you're still wearing scrunchies in 2010, go into your bathroom dump all of the hair-turds-that-they-are into a trashcan and light it on fire.) Now that we can move on...

As I said yesterday I had a great experience at Creative Escape this year. Tim Holtz is by far my favorite "educator" that I've had in a crafty-type class before. His classes are always laid-back, has a meaningful message, and you always make some Kick-A** art. Plus, he's just an all-around nice guy... and as I always say, "God Bless Mario, too." (Mario is Tim's right-hand-man and helps with shipping all the blog candy and putting together class kits, sample boards, etc... He claims he's not crafty, but we all know he is.) So anywho, when I got home after "class" this year, I was waiting to dive into my grungepaper and ever-growing collection of distress inks. At the time also, I was teaching class at a local scrapbooking store (which unfortunately closed down, boohoo) and was considering making the following project a class kit (Same as yesterdays book, too).


So the box was a plain wooden one that you get at Mike's or Jo's for about $6. I think it's about 8x8. I used a Marah Johnson technique from CE and Glimmer misted the flocked paper on the outside of the box. I used 7gypsies patterned paper backed on Tim Holtz fragments w/Glossy Accents as the top box inset. A Black cardstock rectangle is foam-tape mounted in the middle with a grungepaper heart and wings on top w/distress stickles. (phew!) It's also a 7gypsies knob on the front of the box, too. Love those little buggers, can't get enough of them. I was going to use the 7gypsies metal edgers for the top and bottom as well, but that would have added major $$$ to the cost of the class kit; So, I cut strips of black cardstock, scored it down the center, and thinly coated it with glossy accents.

Open the box and see what's inside....













A pretty little book made out of grungepaper! I had a BLAST making this. For one, grungepaper smells awesome. I'd say it's comparable to new leather-car smell and wrapping paper. (Yes, I said wrapping paper.) So the cover I distressed inked with Peeled Paint, then the spine is inked with Fired Brick; Both are also edge-distressed with Walnut Stain. On the inside I used extra-heavy brown cardstock to adhere the edges to the front of the cover and then the butchers twine through the eyelets helps guide the brown paper and keep it place; ditto for the back cover. Make sense? Greek yet? Sprachen Ze Sara?

For the pages I used more of the 7Gypsies patterned paper from the fragments on the front of the box and made pockets and secret places with them. Those awesome cards and little other pretty tags and such are from 7Gypsies, too, and are called "Gypsy Ephemera." I LOVE these cards/tags and such. There was also a massive amount of inking going on here... lots of walnut stain. I used another Tim-technique for tags; crumple, distress ink, spritz with water, heat emboss, then ink again! Such a fun effect. I also could not have completed my project without my crop-o-dile, such a spiffy well-loved tool in my projects. Well, that's about it! Ask any questions you'd like and enjoy the continued gratuitous photos. Thanks for looking!