Leaky Shed Studio with Sonia

Hello crafty friends --Sonia Doneghue here for The Crafty Scrapper!  I'm really excited to share this project with all of you as I had an opportunity to fuse my love of paper crafting with my love of urban and not so urban exploration.  You see, when I'm not painting chipboard I enjoy exploring abandoned places and spaces and capturing images to share with others.  My motto is that "I find beauty where most see atrophy."  I hope you are able to see the beauty too.

This lovely chipboard album is by the fine folks at Leaky Shed Studio and can be purchased at The Crafty Scrapper.  Fortunately, my album is shaped like a camera.  I also want to mention that all of the gorgeous paper I used in this album is from the "Accomplished" line of papers by Authentique.  You can find this paper right by the checkout!  A little bit about the cover which is typically my most embellished part of the book...I wanted to create a contrast between something beautiful and something, well, a bit on the mucky side because that's definitely what this book is about.  I chose a soft damask print for the background and then a bold brick print for the accent pieces of the camera.  All of the paper embellishments including the alphabet are by Tim Holtz and the flowers are by Prima.

Lets look at a couple of pages on the inside...

I really liked the way this turned out.  I'm not gonna lie, I was so frustrated with this page that I wanted to put the pictures sides by side, glue the Maya Road light bulb in the middle and call it a day.  But I walked away, got some sleep, and in the morning I churned this out with ease.  

The photo on the left flips open so that you can see the entire picture on the right and you can also read some details about these photos.  And just in case you can't see the print, these photos were taken in the ghost town of Medicine Mound, Texas which is located between Amarillo and Dallas.  We found the structural remains of a filling station and some really neat relics including the gas pump.  We continued down the road and drove through a field (remember, not so urban exploration) and found a very old grade school.  You can see that edifice on the cover of the book.  I don't think class will ever be in session again.  Or will it?

I'd like to share just one more page with all of you because I used a really neat technique that you will want to try on your next project.  Hold off on the coffee, you're going to need a steady hand for this.  

For this page I took a Maya Road linen heart and laid a stencil over it and then gently applied a thick coat of Wendy Vecchi's Embossing Paste in white.  I promise, once you do this you will want to do it over and over...just imagine the possibilities.  I also stenciled some beautiful black birds on other linen hearts for a different project.  About the photo:  The gorgeous statue on this page was found in an overgrown cemetery in South Texas.  I doubt that old place has many visitors, but I have a hunch that this statue restores hope for the disregarded.

If you would like to see the entire book and read some insight behind the photos, please stop by my blog, Ms. Ruin's Playthings, for all of the details.  You can also see the book on display at The Crafty Scrapper.  

Until next time...take flight!

Sonia Doneghue