Scrap That Too
By Jaclyn Venter
Metz Press
Review: Allison MacDonald
Who can understand what drives some people (almost always women) to scrapbooking? Taking life’s mementoes, embellishing them with little bits of things usually acquired at some expense from specialist crafting stores, and accumulating all this stuff in scrapbooks to stash away in drawers for nostalgic paging through months, years and decades later.
For some, this is time well spent. For others, it provokes little more than a blank stare of befuddlement. For people who belong to the scrapbooking community, this is a book that is sure to spur them on to fresh flurries of snipping, printing, sticking and so on.
There more than 55 projects in the book from Venter, a scrapbooker and baker who lives in Centurion with her husband.
She has taken scrapbooking to the next level, creating not so much paper collages, but beautiful and useful items for your home.
A variety of objects become canvases for photos and collage, from old tins to a huge display door made from pallet-wood.
If this is your bag, then this is your book. For everyone else, surfing “pretty little things to make out of empty jam tins” on Pinterest may suffice.
A PROJECT TO TRY
YOU WILL NEED
2 x canvases in the size you require
2 x serviettes of your choice
Gel medium (I used Dala)
Paintbrush
Scissors
1 Cut out the serviette motif that you wish to stick on to the canvas. Separate the layers of the serviette – you will need only the printed layer.
2 Remove the plastic cover from the canvas. Place the canvases on a craft mat.
3 Spread a thin layer of gel medium on to the first canvas.
4 Working quickly, place the serviette motif in position on the canvas.
5 Working very carefully, apply another layer of gel medium to the canvas. Let it dry.
6 Take the next canvas and repeat all the above steps. Allow it to dry.
7 Finally, apply another layer of glue medium to each canvas and allow it to dry completely before you hang it on your wall or give it to a special friend.
The Star
Pictures courtesy Metz Press