I am totally in love right now with making my own mini books out of muslin fabric and using stamps, inks, and mist to color and embellish them. I love that it lets me make a project completely unique and completely my own and what I want. Add in making my own stamps and the end result is a 100% unique project. I love that!
This book is very simple, it is a long rectangle folded in half. It has muslin for the outside and inside covers with a layer of cotton batting in between. The edges are sewed on the outside with the raw edges trimmed with pinking sheers. The muslin was colored with an assortment of colors of Glimmer Mist (listed below) before sewing.
The cover is embellished with a fabric patch with the How To Know Label stamped on it. The label was stamped first on muslin using Jet Black Archival Ink, colored with Glimmer Mist, and then sewed. Like the book cover, the patch is two layers of muslin with batting in between. The edges are raw and trimmed closely to the stitching.
The butterfly patch was created the same way as the label. It was sewed to the center of the label at the center only, leaving the wings free to move. The butterfly was stamped using Coffee Archival ink. I used a wet paintbrush to brush on a small amount of Wild Honey Distress Ink to add an extra punch of color to the wings. I added a light brushing of Vintage Photo Distress Ink to the edges of the patches and the cover to darken the edges and shabby it up a bit.
I added fabric grommets to the center of the book cover to create a spine. I added simple cardstock pages cut to fit and folded in half. I punched a hole in the fold of the pages to line up with the grommet holes. I ran ribbon through the holes and tied the ribbon on the outside of the book to secure the pages in place.
Before tying the pages in place, I misted them with assorted colors of Glimmer Mist. I cut the edges with pinking sheers and then inked the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I added decoration with text and image stamps made with the Stampmaker. Links to the original images and negatives are below in the supply list.
The images were stamped using Coffee Archival Ink. I am totally in love with the way an image looks stamped in the brown ink. I added color to the stamped images by using a wet paintbrush to brush on Distress Stain.
----------Supplies----------
- stamps: Teresa Collins Stampmaker
- image: How To Know label (negative, original), Monarch (negative, original), Wing Diagram (left negative, right negative, original), Wing with Text (negative, original); We were born with wings (negative), and We were made to fly (negative)
- mists: Tattered Angels Glimmer Mists- Yellow Daisy, Golden Terracotta, Meadow Green,Vanilla Breeze, and Patina
- stains: Tim Holtz Distress Ink Stains- Peeled Paint, Broken China, and Wild Honey
- ink: Tim Holtz Distress Ink- Vintage Photo; Ranger Archival- Coffee and Jet Black
- ribbon: hand dyed seam binding; unknown multi-colored ribbon
- misc: Dritz Grommet
