And then these simply beautiful hanging tags.

What makes this show rather nice, and please forgive me for this, but most if the people don't seem to be earnest quilters.  So you say to them " do you quilt?" and they say "No, not at all, I just dabble with sewing really and I couldn't possibly do this" and you say " Yes you could.  Everyone eith work here had to start somewhere and if you like this then you could try it too".  And what was so nice was that you could then send them off to see Angie Hughes, the Kemshalls, Stephanie Redfern or Hilary Beattie to learn how to do it.

So - a bit of time to myself.  Sod to packing. That can wait to another day.  No where to move to yet.

I should also be doing some work on the Dislocation quilt for FOQ (months away,  but it will catch up with me) but instead got side tracked.

I found some more boxes - and can you guess what I was thinking?


Yep - more book covers.  But this time I am going to try a different binding technique.


So these two I have left intact - the side of the original box will be the spine of these books (elsewhere I am researching book binder stitches)


And the third one will have a fabric spine.  Not quite sure how that will work yet.

And then I cut a new stencil.


And had a play ( a bronze acrylic onto fabric)



And then I got out the Gelli plate and had a bit more of a play (fruit packaging over the plate and printing through it)


And then I tried a new stamp (bargain basement bin at Hobbycraft)


And more acrylic paint on more fabric - the stencil I cut for the book cover.  But I do like it.


For the record, my decorated fabric stash is getting a bit low and I am going to try inking these from the back.  A suggestion from Chloe Redfern.

I'll let you know how I get on.

Oh - and this is the inside back cover with a few artist materials ready to go (I also added a few gel pens too)




Test page in my sketch book.

 This is a good picture, you can see how the paints are working really well, how the wrapper leaves are adding to the effect and how the 'treasure gold' used to highlight the raised areas is working.

Then I turned my attention to the inside of the covers.

Since this thing was to have a pocket at the back the inside had to have a bit of oomph - step forward the pelmet vilene.

Painted in the same was as the front.


Now here you have to start planning your pockets.

For the back I used some previously marbled fabric and made a double layer pocket, as you can see here.  The peg is helping the PVA make a good firm bond.

i also had to think about the closure at this point.  I decided on elastic. If I am honest, this is the one bit of the project I would change in future.

As you can see from the picture I had three separate pieces for the inside covers - front , back and middle.  That was definitely a wise move with the movement on opening and closing.

The red thread is the button on the front to hold the elastic (in face 2 buttons and a bead in a little stack).  Again, in future I think I would change this and make a home made button that tied in better to the design.

I did make, but then rejected this beauty.  For another project I think.




And the inside finished - the little pockets on the inside front cover are marbled and stamped tyvek from my stash.

The book at this stage. A full days work and now just the folios to go.

 And you can see why I had tiered back pockets.  A tin of Inktense pencils and a few brushes is also part of the present.


 At the end of the last post I left you with a few Christmas cards I had gessoed - and here is why!
 The cards have enough strength to give the individual folios structure to hold together in a loose binding. The other pages were made with rag paper (tear it to give it lovely soft edges if you ever use it) and some other random art papers I had.  Some I painted and even printed, but some I left white.

So they were painted and stamped and in some cases embellished with painted tags or more previously decorated fabrics.


 And on the inside of some pages from an old book were torn and stuck.



 Most were of no topic, just pretty, but one folio I wanted to have a seaside theme because 20 years ago Fee and I had an idylic week in Deal in Kent where we went with the children (they were then) and we ate crab!  Which I remember in particular as we had to break into it with a hammer!

So another hand made stamp. (I love making hand made stamps!)




So now just assembly.

But first, let's audition some beads (I love that word!)


A mix of handmade (from a torn book with burnt edges - lovely effect but a tad risky!  These were the result of another day playing at just making stuff following inspiration from this blog and video channel)

 I did a very simple binding - I just tied the individual folio to the spine and threaded beads to give it interest.  That way, if she wanted to, Fee could slip a page out and doodle on it.

So here is a flip through of the finished article.

A couple of decorated tags at the beginning to make it personal.

 The folios - deciding the order to assemble them.




 A few tags in pockets are hidden in the book.  For no particular reason.


The spine!
 Finished and ready to post.






Tag with a tea pot - Fee loves Tea Pots!







Loving my crab stamp.  He'll be used again for sure.