Pamphlet stitched Book with Embossed Panel

Welcome Back 

In today’s post I would like to share a picture of my latest book. 

Pamphlet bound book with embossed panel

This one is a pamphlet stitch binding and features an embossed panel. 

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon 

Billie

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Fantasy Film; Embossed Book

Welcome Back

Today, I would like to share with you, a picture of my latest book.

Coptic Stitched book with Fantasy Film Paper within an inset panel.

This one features Fantasy Film and coptic style binding.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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Weathered Wood Grunge-style Book

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Earlier this year I bought Tim Holtz book, Compendium of Curiosities. The other day I decided to have a go at some of the techniques he showed in there. 

Here are my results with Weathered Wood Grunge, although I did the technique using textured card, rather than Grungeboard but it still works. 

Weathered Wood Panel

Weathered Wood Panel

This is a little pamphlet stitched book that I created with one of those panels. 

Weathered Wood Grunge style book

As you can see, I used the sanding technique on the cover of the book, to add some more distressing. This is a great fun technique to do. Check out Tim Holtz book for instructions for how to create Weathered Wood Grunge. 

Given the embossing involved, this also counts as one of my pieces for this month’s Virtual Crafting Challenge. 

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon 

Billie

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Star Book featuring Clarity Stamps

Welcome Back 

Today I’d like to share a picture of the Star Book that I created, it features Clarity Stamps. This month’s theme for The Virtual Crafting Challenge is B. So I thought I’d make a Book

Star Book Featuring Clarity Stamps

Barbara Grey demonstrated a design similar to this, on Create and Craft in January 2010. I cut my paper to a smaller size than she mentioned, so instead of using the same stamp on the inside, I used a smaller version of the ornate corner.  My book also features different corner stamps to the one’s used in the original demo. 

Products Used

• Stamps: Clarity Ornate Corner small and large
• Paper: Pearl from Paper Mill shop
• Ink: Brilliance; Coffee Bean
• Mat board covers and Perfect Pearl powders

  

Thanks to Barbara for the inspiration, your stamps are wonderful and so versatile too. 

Links

• Clarity Stamps Barbara Grey’s clear stamps. Excellent quality and very versatile.
• Look out for Barbara Grey on Create and Craft, her next show is the first Sunday in March 2010. You can view the show and schedule on the same link. 
• Graphicus also stock the two sizes of Ornate Corner stamps

This was great fun to make and quite quick too. 

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon 

Billie

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Slip Case for Signatures: Sage Reynold’s Style.

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Today I’d like to share some pictures of the Slip Case I made for signatures waiting to be bound into books. Because of limited dexterity, my bookbinding tends to be broken into steps, with varying amounts of time between the steps. It may be several days/weeks between my cutting and folding paper, before they are piereced and sewn.

Here is the case I created

My first Case

Here is a view of the lining of the case

My favorite size to bind in is A7, so my case is a little taller than this. I now have a place where folded papers can live until they are needed for a book. I always mark the corners of my signatures, after they are pierced,  to ensure they remain in the correct orientation for sewing. So my pierced signatures can also happily live in the case until their turn comes round.

Sewn signatures, awaiting covering. Safe in their new case.

The method I used to create this case was featured on Sage Reynold’s channel on You Tube, I’ve put a link to his channel and  the slip case films below. Sage has a wonderful method of working and explains the process from start to finish. The best thing about Sage’s method of working is that he is taking all his measurements directly from the item he is casing, and uses very clever templates for repeated cuts. SOOO much easier and saves a lot of time. The finished box is really sturdy too.

This is my first slip case, and I am very pleased with the result. Thank you Sage for your excellent tuition on You Tube, it is inspiring and your video’s are so helpful and easy to follow.

Links

Sage Reynolds on You Tube.

Sage Reynold’s Tutorials for Creating a Slip Case

• Slip Case Part One
• Slip Case Part Two
• Slip Case Part Three
• Slip Case Part Four

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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My First Cloth Covered Case Bound Book

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For those with long memories, you may remember I have made a case bound book a long time ago. This is my first voyage into real book cloth though and I am very pleased with how it turned out.

Case bound book, my first try with book cloth.

The covers are made from off cuts of mount board, the book is A7 in size and has 80 gsm text weight paper. I followed Sage Reynolds instructions for constructing the case and this is my first successful spine gap. I have always struggled to allow sufficient space for the spine. I struggled to hold everything in the right place to measure as Sage showed in his video, but it was well worth the effort.

This book was a triumph of ‘What if…’ I didn’t have mull to line the spine so I used thin cotton bandage turned out ok, I learnt to use a thicker end paper or apply less glue. This was my first book that was sewn onto tapes, or in my case organza ribbon I even had a go at a wrapped endband. I used the method shown in Peter Baumgartner’s video and wrapped book cloth around a cotton cord. This taught me I needed to cut my finished head band closer to the book than I did, but for a first attempt it was worthy

Here is the book with some embellishment added

These A7 sized books are perfect for practicing techniques, they are fast to sew, use minimal resources and you learn a lot in the process. They also will make perfect gifts at Christmas, they are small enough to pop in you pocket, so really useful.

Links

 

There are a couple of excellent channels on You Tube for book binding that I highly recommend for anyone trying this kind of binding for the first time.

Sage Reynold’s.  Sage’s videos are awesome! He has such an efficient workflow and his passion for the subject shows in the care he takes with his projects. I’m linking to the main channel, but the video’s I used for this bind were the ‘Making a Case’ one’s. There are also video’s on how to sew signatures.

Peter Baumgartner. Peter’s videos show the entire process from start to finish including the sewing, I used the method for the sewing but didn’t have spine cloth so finished my book using Sage’s method.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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Grunge Board Book with Coptic Stitching

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Regular viewers of this blog will have noticed that I have taken quite a liking to Grunge board in the last few weeks. I decided to experiment and see if grunge board was a suitable weight for a book cover, it was a success and today I’d like to share some pictures of the results.

Grunge Board Book 1

I painted the Grungeboard using the same techniques as I showed in the garland tutorial last friday. The board does distort as you heat it, but if you are careful and pin it flat while it is still warm and hold it flat till it dries it is possible to minimise the effect. I coloured natural linen thread with dye ink to match the colours on the covers. The exposed stitching on the spine really stands out well against the darker edges of the covers. The book opens completely flat, which makes it a joy to write in.

Inside covers of Grunge Board Book 1

Here you can see that I painted the inside of the covers in a similar way but used a text stamp in the background. I love this effect. The stamp is made by Hero Arts, I believe it is called ‘Old French Writing’. I’m really pleased with how this turned out. It’s hard to show how antique this looks in a photograph, in real life it looks like antique brass.

Front & Back covers of my Grunge Board Book

Here is a view of the book, to show the front and back covers together. The stamps on the cover were from Creative Expressions ‘Holly’ plate. This is the same plate that had the small holly and poinsettia designs which were used in my Grunge Paper Garland tutorial, last friday. I used Fluid Acrylic paint by Golden for this project, the Interference Gold fine mixed into the red and green paint, gave them an iridescent look too. It is very versatile paint and well worth the investment.

Modify the stamps used on the cover and select a watercolour paper and this would make the perfect art Journal for a creative friend. The Coptic stitch binding, means the book lies completely flat in use, making it perfect to paint or write in. Make sure you wax your thread well and it will seal in the colour if you died the thread. Waxing the thread also means it will resist paint etc, when the book is used as a journal.

Links

For suppliers of these Golden’s paints in the UK, go to Jackson’s Art supplies. There details are listed in the Art links area of the side bar of this blog. There is also a direct link to the manufacturers of Golden paints in the side bar, you will be able to find a colour chart of available colours in the Fluid Acrylic range on that site. I adore these paints.

Grunge Board is made by Ranger, under the Tim Holtz ‘Idea ology’ line. Check out the Stamping Links in the side bar, for the link to Ranger.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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