My book of Tando, Session 1

Hello and welcome, it is just so exciting to share this with you.  Over the next 8 week's you will see a different page from my book of Tando.    We hope that you will join in on these sessions and share your makes with us using the linky tool at the bottom, the collection will be open for 4 weeks giving you plenty of time to organise yourself.   If you have any questions, comments or suggestions please share them with us in the comments section, answers will be published there so its worth checking back.

Right where to start?   Well at the beginning of a book there is a front cover/first page and that is where we will begin today.

Some of the things you will need.
6" x 6" sheet of Tando
Shaving Foam
Plastic ruler
Sturdy Plastic mat
Various inks and dyes
Kitchen Towel
You may prefer to use thin plastic gloves this does stain skin.

Other materials will be introduced as you need them a full list was published here.

Squirt the shaving foam onto the plastic mat.   You do not need a lot one short blast goes a very long way.

Add various drops of inks to the foam and fold in with the plastic ruler.   You will not need to fold more than once or twice the idea is to spread the inks rather than mix them.

Press the Tando sheet into the coloured foam pushing it right in until the foam is escaping out on all 4 sides.   You want full coverage in one go if at all possible.   Set the Tando sheet aside with foam on top for a little while.   There will be lots of foam left over so why not use it on some other card for another day.   You will get different results each time, stop when the inks are so mixed that the results a muddy.

Use the ruler to take the foam off the top of your Tanda sheet to revel the smoky background you have created.    This is the background for our front cover.

 Using the ruler as a spreader some of the remaining foam can be scraped over the reverse side of the Tando Sheet to make the base of page 1.   You can see here how muddy and dark the colours had become.   Some pearlised paint was used in the mix which has given this a lovely sheen not really visible in the picture.

 Staying for now on the front cover the first embellishment is one of the Tando Book Plates which we will emboss with Cosmic shimmer.   You will need for this

Tando Book Plate
Versamark or similar embossing ink
Embossing Powder (ep)
A pokey tool or something that can just hold the Tando Book Plate in place while you heat the ep.
Heat gun.

When the Tando Book Plate has been embossed and is set enough to handle go over the edges with Sakura Gold Pen-Touch to add a finish edge to it.

Use the same Pen-touch on the edges of your Tando Sheet, looks much nicer than leaving them bare.

Using quick drying strong PVA glue attach the Tando Book Plate to the Tando sheet.   Using alphabet die cuts and paper of your choice cut out the name of your book. Add these with the same glue.   When the glue is dry go over the whole of the page with Modge Podge to seal and secure your embellishments.

To finish the front cover one of the 8 birds from the Tando Bird and Branch set has been embossed just as the Tando Book Plate was using Copper for the body and a contrasting yellow for the wing.    The Tando bird has been perched in top of the letter f.    Flat back pearls fill the pre drilled holes in the Tando Book Plate and the front cover is complete.

Now for the first page or the reverse of the front cover.    We have already given this a shaving foam base, now to build up some layer of colour and suggestion of design.

The Tando Music Mask fits perfectly over the top.   These masks are so strong they are a little thicker than some others on the market giving you confidence to do what you gotta do.

Peeled paint Distress Stain has been used over the mask leaving the music score impression.   Although you cannot see it here the sheen from the shaving foam stage seems to be stronger and more enhanced by this stage.

Because this side will rest against the next page and to avoid embellishments rubbing each other this side is kept mainly flat.   And it gives me an excuse to play with my Andy Skinner batik images stamp set.    The words and the bird have been stamped in Adirondack Espresso.

Using a water colour brush the inked outline of the bird has been pulled in to colour it.   Tando Chipboard is very absorbent so the outline dried quickly, the ink pad was touched to an acrylic block and the ink picked up from there with the water brush to give more depth and colour to the image.

The branch from the Tando Bird and Branch set was pressed into the ink pad giving it an all over brown colour.    Stuck near the bottom of the page it gives the bird somewhere to land.








So there you are the first sheet of Tando Chipboard has been decorated and the first session is now complete.    We hope you will have fun with this and the coming sessions, please come back and share you projects with us we love to see all the different things people do with Tando.   Remember the Linky tool and the comments section are open for at least the next 4 weeks and we will check back regularly to respond to any questions you have.   Have fun.