Heartfelt Album Cover and Record Tutorial

I recently got Gina K's Heartfelt Hits and had to get it inky! This and a very special paper inspired me to create this album cover sleeve and record-shaped card!

I started with this Black Velvet paper from Paper Temptress. It does NOT feel like "velvet", though, the closest thing I can approximate it to is vinyl or rubber, it is that smooth! You really want to touch it, again and again, because it doesn't feel like paper at all! (Even my husband was intrigued!) The picture below helps shows the texture when compared to Basic Black. I know this sample doesn't look like Basic Black at all LOL! But when you shine a light on both to photograph, the light picks up all that texture on Basic Black (which you probably know is a very smooth paper!) but the Black Velvet just looks like solid color. The "shade" of the two blacks is really not that different.

The "vinyl" feel inspired me to try making a realistic-looking, "old school" record! I started by cutting out a large circle of it with Nestabilities, then stacking all my nested circles on top of that to emboss some grooves. TIP: Having so many dies in at once cut through some of the circles even though I was using my embossing stack, so if you recreate this I recommend taking a sheet or two of CS out of your embossing sandwich when you run this through to make sandwich not quite so thick and keep it from going all the way through, you can always add them back in if the embossing isn't coming out as deep as you want it. (I still used them all, of course!) just nested them back together and adhered to my card) :)

Next I took a folded piece of CS 4/14" square and placed the same large circle die I used to make my cover and overlapped the edge so they will be round but still attached at the side.

Here is how the card opens up. I really want my embossed Black Velvet front to be a perfect circle , so that's why I did these separately. :)

Next I attached my embossed circle to the front and made smaller "label" with a piece of paper Temptress Wild Cherry stamped with the "Heartfelt Hits I" couple in Memento Tuxedo Black ink. I attached the label so that the couple is going straight up and down lined up with the scored top, this way when the card is standing up they will going the right way!

I found the middle of my record with a ruler and made a dot with my Inkssentials pen as a guide for punching the hole.

Next I opened my card and punched out the white dot with my Cropodile Big Bite. These Big bites have a 6 inch reach, perfect for this type of project.

Here's my record! It looks a bit washed out but I wanted to make sure you could see how "groovy" it is, hee hee!

Next I stamped up a Wild Cherry paper with Memento ink and embossed the star bursts form Heartfelt hits with Silver EP. Using my Scor-Pal, I created a sleeve to slide the record into: bacially a piece of cardstock scored in half and attached at the sides with 1/8 " Scor-Tape, leaving an opening to slide the record in. (I made scored tabs to put the tape on on the sides to fold in so it would look more finished, but I forgot to take a pic, sorry! Either way will work!) :) The album cover is 4 1/2" square when folded, still small enough to fit in an A-2 envelope (to reveal a card in a card!) ;) I sponged the edges with Real Red ink and created my focal point with the Labels One Nestabilities and my "Hand-in-Hand" set. Hands are colored with Copics E00 and E21, tux with 100 Black and C-7, outlined with C-3 (I meant to grab C-1, oops! oh well) :)

When you open it, "I wanna hold your Hand!" from the "Hand-in-Hand" set is embossed inside, to go along with the hit record theme. You could also write in or print out your playlist of songs to go inside the record or on the back of the album. A record card would also be perfect to tuck into a mix CD for your sweetie on Valentine's Day!

Hope you enjoyed this project, and have a good "feel" (HA!) for this specialty paper, for the right project, it's sure to be a HIT! :) If you decide to recreate this project, please link the tutorial and let me know, I'd love to see what you make! Have a great day!