Riding the Orient Express

I have been working on this mini steampunk album for my friend Cindy, whose character in our Upstate Steampunk group is a spy who travels on the Orient Express.  This is only my second mini album and I had fun.  (warning photo intensive blog entry!) I made the cover from chipboard backings of paperpaks and the inside pages of cereal and brownie boxes.  I now recycle all of of my food boxes.  None go in the landfill.  The small ones I use for tags, the larger for pages.
I watched a lot of tutorials on you tube and looked at a ton of photos of works on the Graphic 45 ring for inspiration and techniques.  This time, I tried a lot of fold out folios, in addition to the tag making and original page layouts.  I may still add more embellishments as time goes on, like I did with my first Steampunk mini book.

On the cover I used a cut out of a photo shoot I did of Cindy in her Victorian piano dress and superimposed it over a vintage Orient Express train engine.  Then added K and Co. borders, metal embellishments, Prima flower, hand made title and letters.

I made a World Traveler photo page, accented with feather and Prima flowers,  with a pull out tag using a Graphic 45 Steampunk Debutante lady on one side and a copper metallic paper photo mat on the reverse.
On another page I made a pull out portfolio using Graphic 45 papers on the page and folio cover  and then adding photo mats and journaling pages inside.
I distressed a lot of the page edges using pigment inks to give the album a vintage sort of grungy, well-traveled journal. 

This is an envelope style folio I made which opens up too and has small photo pages. Bits and pieces of Orient Express ephemera and Graphic 45 papers from the Botanicabella and Renaissance Faire paper collections.
On the left, you can see the copper photomat tag tucked in on the previous page on the left. 

I tied it off using a vintage style thread label topper to hold the twine closure. 

Background papers are form a K and Co. paperpak.
I did a two page spread in black because that seems to be a good color for a spy plus I had some gorgeous vintage style papers I wanted to flaunt!  I added some photo and journaling tags and left a large photomat on the page so Cindy can add photos after our big 2-day Upstate Steampunk Con to be held in November.  I'm sure we'll take lots of photos at the hotel which is very posh and Victorian. I made the London stamp using a wooden stamp made by  Hero Arts embossed with blue ink crystals and added ColorBox pigment inks to age it.

Here are the tags I made for photos and journal writing.  I just cut cereal box cardboard in various shapes and added the papers, used a grommet setter so I could add yarn and ribbon pulls.
The opposite sides are photo mats and also have sayings on them. 

I did a third portfolio using on the coin page.  This one is a library pocket portfolio and holds the vintage train itinerary listing all the stations where The Orient Express makes its stops from London to the Egypt. This page also features ephemera from the Orient Express.  The resin coin is positioned on a gold circle which came from the top of my instant Maxwell House coffee jar!  It came off perfect and was too pretty to throw away. This green striped portfolio opens up to hold four photos.

It's held closed with a ribbon accented with a Graphic 45 tag, looped around a Making Memories paper button and tied through a grommet hole at the bottom of the page.And the last page holds a handmade book to look either like a passport or like a journal the Orient Express would give to it's VIP travelers.  The book as well as a ticket are tucked into a pocket embellished with a raven (one of Cindy's symbols) and a quote.  On the cover of this little blue book  is the logo of the Vienna Orient Express from the turn of the century and inside on the cream colored linen pages are various posters from the Orient Express and pages to journal.  I used about three pages of linen stationary to make the insert.  I folded the cover and inner pages with my bone folder so the book would fit better, then used my grommet setter to punch the holds on the center fold and tied the book together with ribbon.