Scrapbook... no, wait...

This is my "Scrap" book. See, I got these lovely fabrics at the Deseret Industries a while back, and I've been thinking for a while how lovely they look together. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think they're a great combo. So I've been trying to think of a beautiful way to use them all together, and couldn't think of anything. Except this, and I'm not sure it if counts as beautiful.

You may recognize the pink fabric from my Mother's day book. All of the fabric for this book was made into book cloth by me. I especially love the beige fabric (the lowest part of the book in the first picture), because it reminds me of 80's prom dresses that you find at thrift stores. You know, the silk moire that looks like wood grain? It's classic. I actually picked up a couple more colors the other day (yeehaw!).

You can see in the picture below that some of the pages are different sizes. It gives the book a more handmade feel, and gives me an opportunity to give all those poor lost scraps of paper a home. They are all very similar in size, and it doesn't harm the strength of the book (or the aesthetic, for that matter).

 I'm happy with the result. The thread is a nice minty green that goes rather smashingly with the blue floral print. On the inside covers I used some rescued dusty pink lokta paper. I can't believe what some people will try to throw away. And at the same time, I can't believe some of the stuff I try to keep, haha sigh.

Check the book out on my Etsy site.

Black Leather and Plaid: A love story

This is the first longstitch book I'll be offering for sale on my Etsy. I'm pretty excited about it because I think it's a great book, and I've solved a couple of problems with this one.

Problem number one: Recycled leather
I would say that the leather I've been using has been great quality, it's just recycled from coats and purses. Coat and purse leather is usually lined with material that may or may not come completely off of the back of the leather. As I have dismantled perfectly good coats and purses, I have found that there is often times sticky residue, or the leather just wasn't made to have it's back side being shown off or rubbing against paper.
Solution: Back the leather with fabric

When I replenished my supply of heat n' bond the other day for making book cloth, I noticed on the package that it said it could be fused to all sorts of things, including leather. I thought that was nifty, then forgot about it until I visited KarleighJae's etsy. She sells some beautiful books, and I noticed that some of them were lined with fabric. I wondered, "How does she do that?" and then 'DING!' duh! heat n' bond!
I wasn't positive, but I decided to try it out. It also helped that KarleighJae had a great video tutorial on how to iron leather.

At first, I didn't think it was working. The corners were peeling off, and it just didn't look like it was sticking. Then I realized my iron had turned itself off (which it does as a safety feature every half an hour). Once I got it back up to heat, it seemed to be doing a lot better (imagine that). I was also immensely pleased when I was trimming the leather later and found it very hard to tear the fabric from the leather. It was possible, but it required a conscious effort.

Then, I had a fear of the edges fraying. They were fine now, but what about two weeks later, after it had been jostled about in a purse or something? I solved this problem by "painting" the edges with gloss medium. The stuff you use with paint to make it shiny. Not the most orthodox approach, I'm sure, but it effectively ceases the fraying, and is not visible unless you look for it.

Problem two: Thick books = a lot of holes
I like books with girth. If I want a girthy longstitch book, I have to punch a lot of holes, right? Punching holes is a pain, especially since I struggle with right angles/ lining paper up to a piece of leather. This book has 11 signatures. There's no way I wanted to punch that many holes, so I only made holes for five. I sewed in the first five signatures, then went back and sewed in the other 6 using the same holes. I feel pretty awesome right now. I think it looks pretty cool, and it solved my problem of not wanting to make any more holes than necessary. The cool thing is, I don't even have to do that. I can just sew under the signatures that are already in place if I want to sew more in. Ya, I know, I'm groovy.

So, that's the book. I sewed a button onto the front so it could have a pretty little button closure. The strap was some leftover material I had, so it worked out perfectly. I think the button and the thread coordinate nicely with the colors of the plaid.

More Cords

I made another cord bound book. This one went a lot better, I think. Firstly, I didn't trim the leather too short, which made it look more finished. I may need to look into paring down the thickness of the leather in the places I'll be folding it underneath itself. Maybe so it won't look so bulky. The first point also plays into my second. Because I didn't trim the leather too short, I was able to make the endpapers the right size and not have to fudge and cut things like I did on the last one. I guess I'm glad I made the mistake in the first place so I could learn from it.

The cover paper I used for this book was some flocked damask paper in a dark rosy magenta color. It's really pretty paper, I've just been looking for a good opportunity to use it. Ever since I bought the black leather coat I've know this would look good.

I used red and black endbands on this. I would like to learn how to make my own endbands so I could match colors and whatnot. It's kind of annoying to me that the only endbands I have access to have really ugly color combos, or the colors themselves are ones that are really hard to match to other materials. Yellow and black? Really? Gold and red? When am I going to use that? Anyways...

Inside the book I used white lokta paper. I left the raw edge on the endpapers because I thought it would go nicely with the torn edges of the text block. I actually tore the end of the endpaper on the back cover. It was fun, because all those beautiful fibers stuck out. It reminded me of my mom's old mulberry paper that she would use for scrapbooking. Good times.

Book of Mystery and Intrigue

This is the book I mentioned in my last post. I found some green lokta paper that I forgot I had, and was able to finish it up nicely. The leather is recycled from a lovely coat I got at DI, and the paper is some I marbled myself in Book Arts. I really like this book and this technique. It has great finished results. Every time. I'm actually about to start another one, but I wish I had some different leathers. Colors, that is. I have some that has some kind of faux leather print on it and I'm not sure how it would work. Maybe I'll try it just for kicks and giggles.

This book is reversible! Yeehaw! There is no up or down, so if you want one side or the other to be the front, you can. Cool, I say.

P.S. I LOVE marbled paper. So. Much. (\____________(^.^)____________/) This much, actually.

Pretty in Pink

Here's my latest book. It is bound with the case binding technique, which is fun, and is made with some of my favorite homemade book cloth. I found the material for this book cloth at DI about a week ago (I celebrated school being out for the semester by buying myself some DI fabric and a cute outfit... and a couple of pairs of shoes... and a leather scrap coat... ok, ok, and a book, all for under $30! I love thrifting), and just made it last night, which was so fun. Anyways, I have a couple of other fabrics that I think would look lovely with this fabric, I just have yet to figure out how to put them all together.

Anyways, I had fun making this book. I tried out a new way to glue the tapes down on the inside of the covers. I started by figuring out where they would go, traced around them, then cut out a few layers of the book board, just like I would if I was embossing. Then, I glued the tapes into their designated spaces, and voila! They didn't show up after I put the end paper on! I'm happy I finally tried this out after Sister Simpson suggested it a while back. Especially since the tapes I'm using are really thick, and would look awkward under the end papers. I think this method makes the book look a little more professional.

I listed this item in my shop hoping it will make a good choice for a Mother's day gift. I dunno. It's pretty, and I think it would be a sweet idea. Too bad I have no idea what to do for my mom. It was simple when I was living at home. Me and the sibs would go pick some springy flowers and make her a very classy breakfast in bed (even taking her order! haha). But now I'm not at home. I wasn't last year either. No idea what to do.

Well, my next project I'm working on is a cord bound book that I'm going to use some of my hand marbled paper and upcycled leather for. I tore apart a perfectly good coat from DI for the leather. I am a villain. More on my villainous ways next time.

Butterscotch

This is a traditional style coptic stitch book I made yesterday. I'm especially excited about this one because it is covered with some of my very own homemade book cloth! Yay! It's actually the same stuff that you can see me make in my video tutorial, here.

I love all the beautiful colors that are in this fabric. It has every color of the rainbow except for green. That was nice, because it left a lot of options open for end paper. I decided on a beautiful butterscotch colored lokta paper, which is almost the same color as the thread. I think it goes nicely with the plaid fabric.

I did switch it up a little with this one by alternating how far onto the book board the stitches go. You can see it in the next picture. Overall, this was a fun book to make, and it was a lot quicker to do normal style. Coming up with variation patterns is hard for me. It takes a while to decide what will look best, and then there's the whole process of poking holes in each signature without the help of a universal template. Grr.

Crocodile Rock!

Here is a book I've been planning to do for a while. I had covered some book board a while back with then intent of doing another crazy coptic stitch. The paper was the inspiration. How could I use this paper and not do something slightly crazy with the book?

Like any good coptic book should, this one lies open flat easily, but unlike my other coptic book, it doesn't try to fly open. The inside paper on the covers is a beautiful dark chocolate lokta paper, and the thread is brown as well. I love the feeling of lokta paper.

The paper I used to cover the boards on the outside is recycled paper screen printed in Zimbabwe. I love the print, but I found the paper to be a little difficult to work with. It was a little thinner than I was expecting, so it wrinkled and bubbled easily when I glued it down to the book board. I managed, and I'm sure I'll do better next time I use it, but it caught me off guard the first time.