Upcoming UStream: Acrylic Albums

Hi, everyone! It's finally time to talk about clear albums! I know a lot of you have been wondering when I was finally going to get around to doing one of these. Well, I'm doing it now, okay!? So stop emailing me about it & yelling at me! Jeez ... :D

Just kidding!

Sort of.

In all seriousness, I have been getting a lot of requests to do an acrylic album in one of my UStream shows. So I have decided that I will start a clear album during Euro Chat on Thursday, July 1st. So the acrylic album series will begin at 2:00 PM EDT {GMT/UTC-4} on Thursday, July 1st & continue until I am done. Whenever that is. All shows are recorded, so if you can't make one, you can always catch up.

For those of you that asked me to post a supply list so you can follow along, you'll have about two and a half weeks to gather these items together. Remember that I will be creating as I go ~ not preparing it completely ahead of time as in an online class ~ so this supply list is just suggestions of things that might be useful to have. I may or may not use all of the supplies listed & I urge you not too buy too much stuff for this album ~ you probably have most of what you need at home already.

Supplies:
1. Pre-made acrylic album, roughly 6"x6" OR sheets of thick overlays like the Hambly Clearly Heavy Overlays {which is what I'll be using}. Grafix and Clear Scraps make comparable products to the Hambly Overlays. I just happen to already have the Hambly on hand, so that's what I am going to use.

2. Staz-On or other solvent ink. Since everything in this album is clear, you'll need some kind of ink that can stamp on slick or non-porous surfaces. I own three colors of Staz-On, so I'll probably be using a combination of them: jet Black, Timber Brown and Cotton White.

3. American Crafts Slick Writer or other solvent marker/pen, such as a Sharpie. this is for journaling directly onto transparencies. You'll want a pen or marker designed to write on non-porous surfaces so you don't have to wait forever for it to dry.

4. Transparencies, both blank and printed, the thicker the better. Again, I am just using what I have in my scraproom> I am going to be pulling a lot of my printed transparencies into this project ~ most of them are from Hambly, the King of Clear in my opinion ~ as well as stamping on blank transparencies.

5. Pictures. You're going to want to gather together some pictures from an event or person or fitting the theme of your album somehow. I would recommend a couple 4"x4" pictures, a couple 3"x3" pictures and a few each of 3"x4" and 2"x3". Try to print an even number of each size if you can ~ that will make life a little easier. If you don't have a photo printer that allows you to print in those sizes, you can use Photosheet to arrange them on 4"x6" prints and have them printed by your local developer ~ then just trim!

6. Coordinating double-sided patterned paper. Once you've chosen your photos, gather your papers together. You won't need huge sheets of this paper since we are not covering chipboard, so you can just go through your paper scraps and collect a bunch of larger pieces. Or you can use a collection to make things a little easier. Something with smaller prints is better than papers with large motifs {such as Webster's Pages and Graphic 45} since you are often using smaller pieces in acrylic albums. I will probably be using Basic Grey's "Lemonade" collection, but I'm not 100% sure about that yet. I definitely want to do something bright & summery. I'm in the modd for that now that it's so hot here again.

That's pretty much it! You'll also need stuff to decorate your pages like stamps, journaling spots, bling, flowers, ribbons, paint, etc. ~ all the usual stuff you normally put into a mini album. Again, you probably already have all of that in your art rooms, so no need to break the bank on this album. To me, it's fun to make clear albums very eclectic & so it's a great way to use up a lot of odds and ends you have hanging around & just have fun playing around!

~Kathryn
Life's a beach. Scrapbook it.