It’s the 10th and I’m back with an instalment of Inspired by!

Inspired by is a blog series by my friend Riikka and I. We decide on a theme (and that theme can be anything from a film, a book, a painting, to an item, colour scheme or material) and then we create something with that theme or thing in mind.

We keep what we’re making a secret until reveal day on the 10th when we show you and each other our creations.

And… this month we chose a throwback. But not any throwback: a throwback to our very first blog post.

Hello!

Ten years ago today I posted this post. I wrote in Dutch and it was a brief one:

Welcome to my blog! I have no clue what I’m doing at the moment, but the idea is that you can see my activities here. And this is what I created today: a photo display after the example of the British Mandy Anderson. I attended her workshop ‘Dubious Doily’ at Scrap-A-Ganza last week.

It really is a blast from the past… Seems a lifetime ago! Definitely longer than 10 years. But the stats don’t lie, so I have to believe it.

Scrap-A-Ganza was one of those huge scrapbook events with lots of workshops and a market where you could get the latest and greatest scrapbooking supplies. This was probably the first one I visited.

I remember Mandy Anderson as a blonde, but I don’t recall anything else about her… I haven’t found her online, so I wonder what she’s doing now.

I still have the photo display. I keep it in a little cupboard with the rest of my mini books. I hadn’t looked into that cupboard for a while and I was surprised at what I found. I have forgotten about a lot of the scrapbooking projects I’ve made over the years.

To keep

As my first post was about a specific project, I decided that I wanted to re-create that project, but in a way I would do it now.

Now, this project was the result of a workshop and knowing me, I probably followed the teacher’s instructions to a T. So I can’t say that this project is something that I would have made on my own. But I do know that I would not make anything like it today!

So what would I make today?

Instead of a photo display, I would most probably make a little book. I really like accordion folded books and I pulled out one of the ready made ones that are in my stash.

The me of today also wouldn’t scrapbook photos from a holiday in Spain. But the one thing I really like about the photo display are… the photos. So they had to stay! And as I could not print them directly onto the pre-made accordion fold, I decided I would have to transfer them.

Lazertran

Gel medium transfers didn’t seem like a good idea because I wasn’t sure how the paper of the accordion fold would hold up. But I remembered that I had a couple of sheets of Lazertran waterslide decal paper for inkjet printers, that I’ve had for years, but never used.

This is how it works:
1 | Print photos (with your inkjet printer) onto the chalky side of the Lazertran waterslide decal paper for inkjet printers
2 | Leave them to dry for about 30 minutes.

3 | Cut (or tear) your images to size.

4 | Drop the image into a dish of water and wait until the decal releases.

And then this is what I did:
5 | Put the decal on a paper towel to get rid of the excess water.

6 | Apply a thin coat of gel medium to the back of the decal and glue it onto the accordion fold.

Once I had all the photos adhered to the booklet, I trimmed the edges and started to paint to make it all flow together.

I didn’t want to make it too serious, so I added little clouds and drew some lines around the images. I also added Ecoline in some areas and I added the titles with india ink and a brush.

Conclusion

Lazertran is fun stuff! There is so much more you can do with the decals, like putting them on a wooden or metal surface or over a gelli print, patterned paper or a drawing.

It is kind of delicate though and it was hard to paint or write over. On the other hand: it took the Ecoline really well. So maybe it’s just a question of more experimenting. Or… maybe I should have applied a coat of clear gesso before I worked on top of it…

Maybe next time! That is if I can still find it somewhere, because I only had four sheets and I used them all up!

Now, don’t let me keep you any longer! I’m super curious to see Riikka‘s first blog post and what she was inspired to create!