Another small book created from the scrap bin. The dimensions are about 2″ X 5″. The book block consists of 6 signatures of 90 Lb. Fabriano Artistico sewn to a leather spine with 4-ply Irish Linen thread. The covers were made with polymer clay using faux jade and bone.
Here’s another small book created from paper scraps. The dimensions are 2 1/2″ X 4 1/4″, the book block is created from 90 Lb. Fabriano Artistico sewn to the leather cover with 4-ply Irish Linen. The mask on the from is molded from polymer clay. The closure was created by boring a recess into the back of the mask and inserting a neodymium magnet, a second magnet was glued into the leather to keep the book closed.
Since I had all my polymer clay tools out to make the covers for my Small Jade Scrap Book, I decided to continue working with the clay and make a few other covers for my scrap books. Next up was a book block that measured 3″ X 4 “. These scraps were 140 Lb. Fabriano Artistico so I limited the signatures to 3 pages, when you’re working at a small scale like this adding too many pages will make your book impossible to close.
I ended up with 10 signatures and decided to continue down the simulated stone road and whipped up a batch of polymer clay turquoise for the covers. In this particular technique you chop the clay up in a food processor and then re-integrate it into sheets. I had some concerns about the integrity of the covers over the long haul, so the interior of the covers are just a sheet of solid black polymer clay.
The binding itself is straight forward. The signatures are and sewn to the leather spine with 4-ply Irish Linen. I liked the color variations in the turquoise, so to emphasize that, I used three different colors of blue thread for the sewing.
Over the holidays I decided I was going to tidy up and I began by cleaning out the bin where I keep my paper. I had a healthy pile of scraps and given that I use Fabriano Artistico for almost all of my journals I wasn’t about to throw any of it out. I sorted the scraps by weight and size, and then tore them down into into book blocks. When the carnage was over, I had 13 book blocks ranging from very small to what I would consider pocket size. I began binding them a few days ago and first out of the gate was this small Faux Jade book with skulls and bone chips. The covers were created from polymer clay using a faux jade technique. I applied some polymer clay “bone chips” along the fore edge just to make it a little more interesting visually. Frankly, I used these techniques because I had scrap polymer clay laying around and wanted to clean up the clay bin too.
The book block is 90 Lb. Fabriano Artistico sewn to a leather spine with 4-ply Irish Linen thread. This is small book and the dimensions are approximately 3″ X 3″ Here’s what it looks like:
