Sunday 29 May 2016

Pencil Case

Since I need to travel soon, I thought I would like to take a traveller’s notebook with me as well as a pencil case to carry what I need. The only 'portable' pencil case I have is a small leather cylinder that used to belong to my husband. It is beautiful and has a nice patina from having been used for so many years.

Still, a cylinder is not so easy to pack, I found, and so I started to look for a flat pencil case. As I always seem to do, I visited Morgan LeFae's Trinkets shop (link on the left) and I found just what I was looking for. OK, I have to admit, I did have that case in my mind for a long time and now was the right time to get it...

I am used to the thick leather that Monique uses for the traveller's notebooks and this one was, of course, thinner for flexibility but it was still of exquisite quality. The colour I chose was dark chocolate (yummy!) and it matches so well my original traveller's notebook that I also got from Monique. It is absolutely stunning and so convenient: it can be opened completely and tied to one of the elastic bands of the traveller's notebook for better portability.

I cannot wait to start travelling and take the pencil case for a 'test drive'!












Thursday 12 May 2016

Transformation - Part 3

After I let the final layer of marker dry, the end result looked pretty good so I decided to leave it at that. I smoothed in some olive oil and let it dry overnight. Then I got some colourless shoe cream and I applied it on the leather. I have to say that even though I was really disappointed at first, I am loving the end result! It's a bit rough around the edges but I think it's perfect!

Here's a multitude of pictures to show how gorgeous it has turned out:









And here it is now together with Lil' Wade:






 Right now, I'm using the Captain America TN with my Hobonichi and Lil' Wade has 2 notebooks that I use for random note taking and project prepping. I'm thinking about maybe swapping notebooks and covers.

One last thing I would like to add if I find what I'm looking for would be red elastic band for closure and for holding the inserts. Now how cool would that be?

Tuesday 10 May 2016

Transformation - Part 2

After the TN dried and after getting what I needed to continue, I finally got started. I made a vector drawing of what I wanted to do on Inkscape and when I was done there, I worked on it further with Gimp in order to get the right size for printing.

This is when I realised that my printer wouldn't work... I wanted to print a stencil but it just wouldn't let me.

So because my design is mainly concentric circles, I decided to go old school and unearthed my very basic and limited geometry drawing skills and drew the sketch directly on the cover. Of course, the pencil I was using didn't mark the leather all that well and I had to tweak some of my tools... I got out a Frixion pen, did a test to make sure I could delete the marks afterwards (I could) and got started.

Once I was done with the initial sketch, I took out my alcohol-based markers. I know this is not the traditional tool to use when applying colour on leather, but I had some great results on the bookmark I did with a Deadpool design so I thought I would give it another go on a bigger project.

I started colouring the main sketch (concentric circles) and it looked good. Then I coloured the background completely with a blue Edding marker. And this didn't look good at all... I was really disappointed although I did expect it might do something like that. I had colouring marks everywhere... This is definitely one of my pet peeves when using markers, despite the fact that I love working with them...

I waited a while for the original colouring to dry and I went through it again with my marker and to my surprise, the marks were less pronounced the second time around!

I have to say though that the marker I used for the design is different from the marker I used for the background. For the design, I used a red marker from the brand Graph'It.






I already have 2 shades of grey of the same brand and I love them. Unfortunately, I cannot find them in shops in Germany so whenever I go to France, I make sure to get a few markers before leaving! They are really good and almost half the price of the Copic pens. I don't know how they compare with Copic pens in terms of quality but I really like the Graph'It ones.

The marker I used for the background is a blue Edding pen that is available pretty much everywhere and it feels maybe a bit less 'juicy' than the Graph'It pen but it is still very good.





This morning, I went over the cover a third time and the marks are still there, although less pronounced than after the second go.

One thing I noticed, which should be obvious, is that the cover feels more rigid or at least drier than it did before I started this project. But this is hardly surprising since the alcohol contained in the pens will have contributed to the drying of the leather.

And here is the finished (for now!) product:



I will wait a little while before moving ahead. I'm still not sure whether it needs one more layer of markers or whether I can just leave it as it is and add some product to soften the leather. I could also give it a vintage feel as well and it would take the emphasis away from the marks. Decisions, decisions...

Monday 9 May 2016

Transformation - Part 1

I have introduced my natural untreated leather cover a while ago. This was the very first cover I ever did and it is clearly my pride and joy. This is the cover that houses my Hobonichi Techo (A6) and it's a cover I use every day.

A few months ago, I also made a bright red A6 and LMC sized cover with a Deadpool design on it. I documented this largely in this post and this one.

I have temporarily removed my Hobonichi and placed it in the Deadpool A6 cover while I work on the plain leather one.






Before I start drawing on it, I need to prepare the leather, which means I need to give it a bit of a clean because over the weeks, it has developed some marks and I need to have those removed.





I have removed the closing elastic band and I have wiped the cover clean with a damp cloth. I have seen different instructions recommending to use mild soap and then some form of conditioner but all I want really is to remove the main black marks and freshen it up a little.

This is now done, so I will have to wait until it fully dries. In the meantime, I'm going to start working on the actual design and I will be gathering my supplies.