Vintage Book Turned Mini Album

 Good morning! Today I'm sharing the base of an album I've made, using the cover from an old book. I used the pages to make my Vintage Book Page Wreath that I shared last week. I didn't want to just throw out the cover, and I had taken Celine Navarro's mini book workshop at Studio Calico, so I had information I needed to turn the book cover into a mini album.

A couple weeks ago on Instagram, I shared this photo with the caption "Either my parents lied to me, and I'm secretly related to The Hulk, or I have one amazing project in the works. Either way, I have to work in 10 minutes and this isn't coming off". I washed my hands four times and it only faded slightly. When I got to work, Jon gave me some lemon wedges to get more of it off. It didn't all come off until a couple days later, but it was absolutely worth it! Next time  though, I think I'll wear gloves, or do it when I don't have to work immediately after.

 

Here's my album. It's nothing fancy, and since it doesn't currently have a use, I haven't done anything with the front cover yet, or made any pages for the inside. I'm thinking I'll just cut some patterned paper in colours that match the outside, and add photos, or remove the pages when I decide what I want to include in this. I used two layers of fabric over my vintage book cover. The first layer was plain white cotton fabric, (I tore up some old pillow cases) torn to be just a little larger than the book cover so I could wrap the edges around to the inside. The second layer was a little larger than the first so I could overlap the strips, and it was torn randomly into 6 strips. No real reason, I just decided to tear it into 6 strips.

 

In the class, Celine used ink refills to dye the fabric from one of the Studio Calico add-ons. I don't have any ink refills, so I used blue and green food colouring. I love that the way I did it (squirt the food colouring onto a plastic bag, add a bit of water, wet the strip of fabric and mash it into the color until the whole piece is coloured), made the colours uneven and almost tie-dye. The only thing I didn't like, was how little control I had over the color the fabric turned. All I knew was that it would be some shade of blue or green or blue-green. 

Here's how the whole cover looks. I accidentally put two of the strips a little close together while they were drying, and the blue from the very top strip bled into the fourth strip from the top. I love that the colors aren't perfect, and given that it was my first attempt at dying fabric with food coloring, I think it went pretty well.

 

Here's the inside. You'd never know that it started out as an old book. I added Tim Holtz rings to the spine so I could add or remove pages. I wrapped the dyed fabric around the the inside as well.

I didn't care that the edges were uneven. I had planned to stitch them down, and then cover the inside cover with some patterned paper, but the cover was too thick for my sewing machine, so I just left it. Maybe later I'll find a way to ensure it doesn't come off, but for now, it's being held down by some glue.

I used some teal coloured fabric tape to cover the masking tape I used to secure the spine. I didn't want the back of the brad to go through all the layers of the spine, so I separated the cardboard from the right side and punched holes for the brads to go through, then used masking tape to secure it down again and then the fabric tape.

Thanks for coming by to see this mini album! I'm so excited to make a few more this year, and share them with all of you!

Have a great weekend!
-Alexandria