green/yellow/red handmade paper

it's that time again! the hand decorated paper swap. well, this time i decided to play, and made my paper instead of just decorating some other paper. i was thinking of originally doing something similar to the envelope decoration i did for this group's altered envie's swap, but i have been recently making this paper. here's hoping everyone likes green! this paper is pretty simple, as with the other cloth papers--it takes linen, a lot of thinned down glue, and several layers of tissue, with spray pigment over top for some of the red and yellow... or rather, butterscotch and cranberry color. it ends up being pretty thick and durable, and would hold up well to being a base paper for ATCs, or even as a cover stock for some sort of journal. can't wait to see what everyone else sends! (tempt, tempt!)

here's a detail of this particular paper in which you can see that it carries a lot of yellow and red as well as green. i took a piece of it and started making a miniature book from it. it looks pretty neat with a grey on white striped interior paper. pix of that to come, of course, when it is finished and embellished.

artist book - star

artist book - star
Originally uploaded by anongrrl

i got a little crazy combining my handmade paper (remember it from my post here the other day?) when hand binding a book. i decided to do smal, portable size sketchbook whilst pondering what to do with a larger book i am working on. i say only a little crazy because there is not yarn exploding from the interior, the spine, and crazy things dangling off every inch of this journal. at least not yet!

take a sneak peek inside this little book, or go to my flickr to see all the gorey details of this little star embellished creation.

i learned to do the hard spine type binding in a workshop with jennifer d. anderson, a printmaker from santa monica, CA.

one tip: if your glue is too thick (when you are making the paper itself), it can tend to crack when it's folded tightly to make this sort of book cover. perfectionists might wanna try this sort of binding with thinner papers!

detail - cloth paper

red/orange/gridded paper - detail
Originally uploaded by anongrrl

i took a day out for making some paper... well 'cloth paper'. which is a layered paper thing using muslin as a backing. boy can it be labor intensive if you're making large pieces. you have to be really careful not to tear the tissue paper while it's wet, or it globs up. glue glue glue. i found out just how important a thin glue is. also, how much of it you go through making a large piece (a lot!) with layers. whew!

has anyone else tried this? got any tips or tricks? i found running a brush of glue lightly over each piece of tissue paper as it goes down is very helpful to your overal sanity and workability. keep the brush wet or you're going to have things sticking and ripping. it's very much like throwing on the wheel that way--if your hands aren't wet, it creates drag, and things tear!

you can see a full image, and links to other details and images of today's paper @ my blog.

xox
nicci