Monday, December 20, 2010

Book distressing

Posted by Micah at 10:49 AM
I have a lot of friends that read fantasy or play fantasy role playing games. I love stories like the Hobbit and movies from books like Lord of the Rings. I play World of Warcraft with my husband, mother and best friend. So when I saw this book at Costco the other day, I had to pick it up! It's technically a photo album but I just couldn't see it that way (scrap bookers don't usually keep photos that way afterall).

Instead I could see an old tome, perhaps an alchemist kept her potion recipes in it, maybe an archeologist found it and discovered a guide to ancient dragons.





It also reminded me that I had been looking for this style of photo album to put my recipe cards into. This way you can write out your recipe, easily "re"sort them if you get another recipe and you're storing them alphabetically, and if you spill something on the card? no problem! Just make a new card!








But the book looked so new! It's bonded leather so it has that matte look to it and I have to be careful distressing it. I took a deep breath and dived in with my sanding block. Every now and then I wiped it down with a damp cloth to get rid of the dust. Then I "oiled" it by gently rubbing it with a cloth with a teensy bit of oil on it


I was going to do more but the finish was coming off a bit too easily on the embossed design and the spine, so I topped it off with some mocha pearls and called it a finished project.







I don't expect to get too many posts made between now and the new year... but in the new year I'm going to do a series on different styles of embossing. What kinds of embossing techniques have you heard of? Which is your favorite? Is there one you just can't figure out? or just can't stand doing?

Thanks for checking in!

7 comments:

Tammy Zacharias said...

Looks awesome Ruth! You did a great job@!@

HappyCrafter said...

This is fabulous! I really like how you took this and made something so special and unique out of it! The finished product is a huge improvement over the store bought one.

Kathy and Lucky said...

This is amazing, what detail, it leaves me actually speechless. What a perfect gift to someone and so unique. Can't wait for the series on embossing, I enjoyed your coloring mediums. :)

Andrea said...

Hard work and your efforts paid off...fabulous job!

Unknown said...

That looks stunning and very antique-like.

Claudia Rosa ~ Pretty Pressings said...

wow.. ruth this is amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gina Lindsay said...

Oh wow, this is just amazing. Great idea for storing your recipe cards, but your transformation of the book itself is just amazing. Beautiful, I love it.

 

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