A Little Bit of Shabby Vintage Bookmaking......

Start of a new week and my new working plan. Today I decided to make some books for my shabby chic beach hut shop. So  I only put out the bits and pieces required for this task. No meandering, planning or distractions!!

 I have printed off some vintage book jackets from the Internet. I decided to also make a small batch for Flourish and Blotts at the same time as every little bit will help there!! Hmmmm, I know a teeny bit off task....

 I bought these jotter and memo books from the local Poundland shop, they have glued spines. The idea is that I use the glued spines, cut to size, as the inner pages of the books. I am hoping that this will save a bit of time in the whole process.

 I have read many book tutorials and try slightly different ones each time, this method is an amalgamation of many talented artisans. This method is great for pre-printed covers and works especially well with complete book jackets. I have printed these on good quality photo paper and the reproduction is very good. Once they have been cut out I cut a backing to size allowing some room at the top an bottom as this makes scoring the spine much easier.

The backing for the book jackets is card from a cereal box, perfect for this job. Then mark the spines top and bottom and score the lines with a very sharp knife.

 If you make a few at a time the glue from each one will dry as you work on the next. I allow them to dry for a as long as possible as trimming is much easier when they are fully dry. The scoring of the card, not the printed book cover, gives the finished cover a really good shape.

Now all the need to do is glue in the pages using my Poundland purchases and tidy them up.

I have lots of book tutorials on my Flourish and Blotts Pinterest page, as well as links to all sorts of book covers if anyone is looking for ideas and inspiration.

 I couldn't resist a little meandering while I had the scissors and glue out so I made a little trio of boxes that I have covered in vintage sheet music inspired by a real life trio I saw in a real life shop. 

 They still need tidying up a bit with a little light sanding and another coat of Modge Podge but I think they will look cute in my beach hut.

This has definitely been mine kind of day!!

Making Miniature Books Part 3

I have been spending time trying to produce books that look like aged, distressed or interesting leather.

These are the ones I have made by layering wrinkled tissue on a piece of card, cutting the card to size and then folding over a piece of balsa.

 This method has led to mixed results. The balsa has had lines drawn at the edges and then stained with gold paint or wood stain. The books' covers from the cut card have a very clean edge, whereas the book at the top of this group has had the tissue folded over to soften the edges of the book.

 The clean edge is not a problem for the books that are going to be shelf fillers and they are much quicker to make but for the book piles I will need to make more of the wrapped edge books. 

I had already cut some book covers to size so I added the tissue paper for folding over.

I could have dumped these covers but I liked the green finish of this card. 

 These two books have had their charms and texture highlighted using Rub 'n' Buff. Again the wrapped edges are a much better finish.

 The spines of the two books show the difference of simply folding and scoring the card stock.

The book on the left has a much rounder spine and is less defined. 

Either look works for my needs I think.

I am really pleased with how these have turned out but if you want the look without the pain please have a look at the books of the extremely talented Victoria in her Dark Squirrel Etsy shop. She has some marvellous books available at the moment. 

More supplies!! I found these on Ebay from diamantecrafts, they sell a whole range of really tiny gem stones both 1mm and 2mm. They are made for nail art but would have lots of uses in our mini world.

 A quick and simple way of decorating the spines to start with.

 Plus a little bit of steampunk for the shelves.

 Much more traditional spines and labels. The font is size 4, really tiny.

The whole group together, or one shelf!! Oh my word, have a long way to go!! 

During a very wet Sunday I have pasted some normal sheets of paper with the crinkled tissue to see how that turns out. Practice makes perfect!!

Making Miniature Books Part 1

I am up and about at last so I have set up my dining table for miniature book making. 

Thanks to everyone who gave me links or advice about where to look for tutorials, I have looked through lots of them and have started with two methods that have come from blog reading and looking carefully at some of the beautiful books I already have in my collection.

The first method I have been working on is the creation of fake leather/dragon skin. This is what I have come up with from various sources.

I have torn strips of tissue paper very roughly.......

 ...... and then glued the strips in over laying each other. I used a PVA/water solution and just slapped it on in layers on a piece of card stock. I started with two sheets one I simply tore the tissue paper into strips and for the other sheet I crumpled the tissue paper and then tore it into strips for a more crumpled effect.

 I let these sheets dry thoroughly and then coated with a layer of acrylic paint and two coats of a PVA wash which gave the textured paper a really nice gloss.

I will cut these sheets up into book covers tomorrow.

 I also decided to see if I was better of using this method on pre-cut book covers as well as trying to see if I could texture the front covers with hidden charms and glue blobs.

Here you can see the different stages. As I have a lot of bookcases to fill a lot of the books will have wood centres.

On these covers I have layered the tissue over an owl charm and a spider charm. Can you also see the glue bobs on the spine? Definitely trying everything here!! Added one coat of acrylic paint.

 Not sure how well this is working over the charms. You can just about see the spider underneath.

 Using my finger I have lastly, worked in a coat of Rub n Buff which really seems to have brought the texturing alive. I will now be able to trim them down and add the pages for the inside.

 By the time I trim it, fill with parchment pages and perhaps a spine label I think it might make a good topper for a pile of books.

The second method I have started with is much simpler but surprisingly time consuming.

I have printed off lots of complete book covers/jackets from Google images. Deciding that my Flourish and Blotts will include on its shelves lots of books that I have enjoyed with my children as well as those with a fantasy link.

 I tried printing directly onto card stock which worked quite well and meant I could then glue directly onto the balsa 'pages' insert.

I also printed onto paper which I then glued onto card stock, allowed to dry and then put together.

They both seem to work out the same really.

I also cut up some wall paper and leather off cuts. The leather was a nightmare to cut. I used a craft knife, scissors and a Stanley knife but still ended up with very rough edges. 

I have made the books in blocks of 3 and 5 as I think grouping the books will look much better on so much shelving.

The one thing this last couple of days has taught me is not to be too obsessive about all these books. I am going to concentrate on setting out lots of statement stacks and individual books around the whole shop.

Maybe one day it will be filled with individual, opening books that can all be read!! Not this year though!!