Personalising the Cover Part 1

I have to admit that I like to take my time over personalising the cover of my journal.  I start with an idea, but sometimes it changes quite dramatically over the  life of the book.  Over the next few weeks I’ll share with you the progress in conversion.

The book that I’m currently using is a square, spiral bound drawing book.  It makes a change from A5 or A4.  Here’s what I’ve done so far – and I warn you, it doesn’t look anything very special.

First I chose some hand-dyed fine gauze that is large enough to wrap right around the book with plenty of overhang.  Here it is after I splodged glue in areas on the cover.

The white areas show where the glue is – it’s still wet.  I’ve just PLACED the gauze on top so that there is texture in some areas, and ONLY PART OF IT IS STUCK DOWN

This is the inside, and you can see that there is a reasonable overhang that I am just TUCKING IN at the moment.  I want to leave my options open…..

I’ve done the same with the back.  So this is what it now looks like.

Nothing is trimmed, all that will happen later, when I’ve finally made up my mind.

This picture shows some of the texture.

The spiral binding is completely encased

But it is easy to manipulate the gauze to access the rings

Next I’ve chosen some fabrics that are the colours I want and I’ve torn some strips.

I keep these with the Journal, and each time I finish a page I tie a length to the coil

It’s much easier to do it as you go rather than all at once at the end.

We will revisit this exercise at a later date.  Some colour may transfer to the taggy bits as pages are coloured, but this just adds to the effect!  It doesn’t look perfect, and maybe it won’t do so when it’s finished – but as I’ve said before – it’s only a journal…..

If you want some gauze I have listed some undyed gauze here. You can even colour it with the Koh-i-noor paints for mixed media work….

More to follow soon on this subject, in the meantime, how about this as the next step?

Part 2, a gentle reminder, is here