1st February blog

My first February blog.

I have been giving most of my time this last week getting on with my book. Once the momentum is there I like to keep going.
However, I have had a bit of a play. I finger brushed the orangey painted foil (see earlier blog) with a black lustre wax to dull down the surface but it wouldn't dry so I tried rubbing the surface of the blue painted foil with a dark blue oil stick to see if that would dry. This did dry so I wiped the black wax off and used a black oil stick instead and it has dried and is ready to use.
I also did some stencilling with the Nefertiti stencil which is ongoing.

Today I decided to turn the blue painted foil into a piece. It was small so I decided to make it a little note book cover. As it was blue I decided to make it a sea background. I had peviously made some nautilus stamps with funky foam so I used one of them to stamp blue skeleton nautilus shells over the background. I covered this with a piece of blue nylon chiffon to tone down the shine.

Next I cut a piece of blue felt for the lining. I used a silver liquid marker pen to draw more skeleton shells onto the felt rather than stamp them.
I bonded the three layers together with free machined waves using a silver metallic thread.


I wanted something for the front cover so decided to create some dangling nautilus shells. I had already digitised some nautilus shells for a previous piece so used one of them and stitched out 3 shells on blue felt. I used a metallic holographic thread to catch the light rather like the inside of a nautilus shell.
I used a Madeira silver braid to make the hangers for the shells after they were cut out. I secured them to the inside top edge ready to be enclosed in the edge stitching.

I also attached the paper holding braid to the top and bottom of the back inside edges - again to enclose them in the edging.
Then I satin stitched around the edges with a blue and black flecked metallic thread which behaved itself beautifully thanks to my new thread guide (care of OH).

I made a starter page for the inside to show how the thread holders work. You can also see the lining.
I stitched my logo and the book was finished.

I had considered distressing the surface and using embossing powders but when I did a test on an empty wrapper realised that it isn't metal foil it is plastic and so 'melts'. I was too interested to see how the embossing powders would look sothank goodness I tested first. It wasn't that I didn't know it was plastic - I have used this before as it distorts similar to Tyvek - I just wasn't thinking.

Back to the book - should get another chapter revised tonight.