Art Journal; Yellow longstitch book

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Today I would like to share some pictures of an art journal I made. Before I had my own leather, I bought a bag of scraps from Jackie to see how I got on. Amongst the pieces she sent me was the most gorgeous sulphur yellow piece of leather. I have been saving this for ages and finally decided that it would make a very good art journal.

 

The other think I wondered whilst looking at this lovely piece of leather was…. would acrylic paint dry on the unfinished side of the leather. Jackie had coloured the piece yellow and the reverse side was still natural leather. In the interests of trying new things, I applied a couple of coats of Cryla acrylic paint to the piece to see how it would get on.

Un-finished (suede) side of leather, painted with acrylic paint

It looked very nice, but was a bit ‘bright’ considering the outside was such a strong colour. Next I wondered if alcohol ink would dry on top…

Painted side of the leather, after alcohol ink has been applied

 

 

So I put a couple of coats of alcohol ink on top and really liked the result. A very interesting alternative to marbled end papers I though.

 

The assembled book showing alcohol inked inside cover

The assembled book showing alcohol inked inside cover

The paper in the book is water colour paper so it would hold up to washes of watercolour or acrylic paint. I assembled the book and bound it using Long-stitch, which is perfect for this as it opens completely flat. I am very pleased with the finished book…the only drawback is….I like it too much and worry about using it! DOH!!!!!!

Let me know what you think.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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Long stitch book with wrap around cover; Anna Griffin style

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For those of you who know me from http://www.stampingmadforum.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl you will know I am a big fan of a stamp designer and paper crafter Anna Griffin. This is a bit of an irony as I am such a tom boy kinda girl, that the floral style of Anna Griffin shouldn’t really appeal, but I adore her botanicals range of stamps.

Today’s book was made on 4th June 2008, as you can see given the learning curve I am writting stuff for the blog ahead of publishing dates. This book is another in the longstitch bindings, and features a wrap around cover, which I created using the Scor It board.

 

 

 

Here is a closer look at the longstitch itself. I bound this one using a lighter Barbour thread of 25/3 cord, which I coloured using the same Adirondack ink that I had used on the cover, Pink Sherbert. I then waxed the thread to keep the colour sealed in as the dye ink would run without this.

 

 

 

Since this book has such a feminine stamped image, I decided to add a Pink organsa ribbon to help hold the book closed and add interest to the cover.

 

 

 

My book is A7 in size and features ivory pages, which I cut using the handy Dream Kuts machine. It will be going to my Auntie for her birthday in September. For details of where you can find out how to learn longstitch for yourself see __LINK TO PREVIOUS POST__

 

If you have any questions or comments please use the box below.

Best wishes and thanks for reading

Billie

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Long stitch book; ATC holder; made using Scor It Board

Welcome back

Today I would like to share with you the ATC or Artist’s Trading Card holder that I made with the help of the Scor It board.

       

As you can see this book has a wrap around cover and the scoring for this I achieved using the Scor It board, simply taking the measurements from the pages, to guide me where to score.  I used a Crop A Dile tool to punch the two holes and then a craft knife to join the holes together, to form the slit into which the back covers edge fits into to hold the book closed.

The pages themselves were cut from a 12 x 12″ scrapbook cardstock, using my trusty DreamKuts machine.  I then stamped with the oriental images using Adirondack dye based ink in Willow. I added photo corners to hold the ATCs in place.

This shows the longstitch itself, which is the binding that is holding the pages in place. I used Barbour thread, in this book it is the 18/3 cord the same as I used on the Stab bindings 

http://billiescraftroom.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/japanese-4-hole-binding-my-first-attempt/  I cut thread to length and then waxed with Beeswax before sewing, to help keep the knots in place. This book is 3″ wide and ?” tall.

Further reading

If pestered I could do a tutorial on how to cut and score the cover but you will need to refer to the following books if you would like to learn the longstitch itself. This is because it is FAR too detailed to go into in the confines of a blog space.

Keith Smith Non Adhesive binding Volume I

Cover to Cover by Shereen La Plantz

For further details of these books please see the BOOKBINDING tab at the top of the blog.

Best wishes and thanks for reading

Billie

 

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