Thursday, July 14, 2011

A Labor of Love

The one and only half-page book I've ever done was incredibly difficult to do, which is probably why I haven't attempted one since. Not only was the process itself tricky, but I tried to get "creative," which can lead to some interesting things.

This fabric was in the same fat quarters bundle as the fabric I made the Japanese-bound books out of. I love purple, and I love butterflies, so I wanted to do something special with this book. Heather and I went back and forth for a bit on what size to make the book, and I decided to be adventurous and try to make a half-page book. That meant that we had to specifically cut out the larger covers and spine, and the cover guide had to be majorly adjusted. The hardest part about the process was the gluing, because I'm not used to having to spread glue over such a large area. Very tricky!

As I was working with the fabric, inspiration struck. It was one of those times that I really wish it hadn't, because I was forced to complicate things even more since it was such a great idea. I taped the fabric to a window, put a piece of white paper over it, and traced the large butterflies on the fabric. I then took a half-sheet of purple paper, repeated the tracing, carefully cut out the butterflies, and glued it down at the ends of the book. This is the end result, an inverted paper version of the fabric:


Oh, I also used the fat quarters ribbon to make a bookmark for this book. All in all, it was a very ambitious project, but I'm so pleased with the way it turned out. It truly was a labor of love, and I hope this book winds up in a good home.