Leather Books

Yesterday was a very happy crafting day :D
My son has wanted to make a Midori-style leather journal for a while now. When we were on holiday in September we found a marvellous fabric shop which sold some amazing pieces of leather, from tiny little bits right through to full hides and the colours on offer were great, too!  I was very restrained with my purchase and only selected a small thick piece of brown (I did let a fat quarter of grey reindeer printed cotton jump into my arms amongst other things).
So this is my first attempt at a Midori-style leather journal:

 I know the edges are supposed to be neat but I just love the shape of this and the flappy-ness of it so I'm keeping it this odd shape.  I think I need to stiffen the inside at some point but I doubt I'll use it (it's too nice!!) so there's no rush for that...

and following on from this I made these teeny tiny little leather covered books...

 just gorgeous with their elaborate silver corners on the front

 and their thick pages inside

and a ragged little leather pocket tag book...

 ...which is waiting for some dark tags to be conjured up for inside and a little bit of decoration

. ...♥... .

Another Little Handmade Book

This one is covered in a blue and beige scrapbook paper and finished with a vintage-style plate, turquoise wooden heart-shaped button and pearly beads.  The little padlocks on the front and back cover relate to the fastening string to tie the book closed.

The spine is decorated with giddy little ribbon ties in organza and ric-rac braid knots.

The pages are old school maths book pages.

and the signature ties are finished off with little paper hearts and tags.

Handmade Book

I made this book a while ago and added the finishing touches recently.

The cover is made with a scrapbook paper printed with postcards and old letters.  It is decorated with a newsprint frame, tiny jigsaw pieces and a wooden heart button...

with the signatures tied through the spine with cotton twill ribbon knots.

The pages are made up from craft papers, handmade papers, 

pretty card, old book pages, vellum and doilies.

The signature ties are finished with little charms of acorns and a leaf...

...pretty buttons...

...and a tiny tree and flower charm.

. ...♥... .

Button Notebook

My sister made me a lovely book for Easter and we have since made some together on one of our craft days.

Firstly, I padded and covered a plain hardback notebook, sewing silk cross-stitching across the top and bottom.

then sewed lots of lovely buttons, beads and embellishments on the front cover.

and sewed some french knots and golden stitching to finish it off.

Mini Notebooks

After a long break, back to crafting!

Here are 3 mini notebooks I made, borrowing the idea from my son, who has made several for himself.

I have used my usual embellishments, ribbons and some scraps of vintage lace.

I even ragged each page edge on the larger of the oblong books but resorted to shaped scissors for the other two.

I doubt they'll ever get written in but I may use them as mini photo albums when I finally get around to transferring my old photos to the computer!