And Old Book and Lots of Gold.

When I saw Lynne Hoppe's pochette (little pocket) I wanted to make one. It is a pocket made from an old book cover, used to hold loose paper. I have quite a few books waiting to be made into journals, so I found one that I thought would be suitable. It is about A5 size, and has a lovely cover, with pretty gold text and decoration, but was not in a very good state, so I didn't mind cutting it up. I took out the pages, then decided to bring out the embossed pattern on the cover using Buff-It. I just rubbed it on lightly with my finger. 

 I was looking for a corner punch in my basket of punches, and rediscovered this lotus stamp. It is a really big stamp and the shape and feel of it goes well with the other decoration on the book. I stamped it in black ink, then sprinkled with gold embossing powder. It is my favourite colour embossing powder as it is such an unpromising dull greeny brown before heating, so the change is really dramatic.

 I found a couple of fabric covered old buttons, and gold embossed them too.

 I added fabric tape to the inside of the spine, to strengthen it. This tape is the only recent purchase. All the other things I used have been hanging around for a while, some for years!

 I decided to add a paper envelope inside to stop the paper from falling out. I remembered this weird green paper I bought in Paperchase about 15 years ago. I have never known what to use it for. It is like very thick glassine paper. I used double sided very sticky sticky tape to put it into the book cover.

 I even did some measuring and used a ruler to ensure at least some accuracy. 

 I found these paper fasteners in my tin of such things. Again something I have had for years. They made a perfect closure with some stripey string.

 Finally I added my third type of gold-gold leaf to some of the edges. I have quite a lot of it, some bought in Paris a long time ago, and some my Mum gave me recently. I am not very good at applying it but I didn't mind a rough look! It is the most shiny of the three types of gold, and makes me want to cover everything in it!

 The elastic loop to keep it closed and voila!