Monarch Book Cover

Monarch

I often use vintage book covers to create new books from scratch. In my stash is this beautiful cover, with naturally-aged marbled paper and leather accents. It seemed to me that elements from Spellbinders A Gilded Life collection would be the perfect match.

I started by cutting and embossing pewter foil paper using the Petite Monarch die.

With a love of metal accents, I decided to attach the die cut using both adhesive and metal brads. I lined up the die cut to the leather edge of the book cover and marked six holes with a pen using the pre-cut holes in the die cut as a guide.

Using an awl, I created holes through the cover to allow for the brad prongs.

Both glue and the metallic brads will hold the die cut to the surface of the book cover.

I distressed the die cut by running a sanding block over the embossed surface and adding some matte black paint using my fingers.

Using Spellbinders Antique Corner die,  I cut and embossed the same pewter foil into a beautiful, filigreed shape. My idea was not to use it as a corner though.

I used the Antique Corner die cut as a template and cut the same shape out of a piece of hand painted paper that I had. 

I backed the die cut with the paper and then distressed the foil as above, with a sanding block and some matte black acrylic paint.

I adhered this piece to the edge of the book cover, opposite to the side of the Petit Monarch die cut.

At this point in the process, there is how the book cover looked.

Continuing to embellish the cover, I used 5 elements from Spellbinders A Gilded Life Relics -- 2 of the same elements from set A and 3 of the same elements from set B.

These elements were glued horizontally onto the points of the Petit Monarch die cut on the edge of the book cover.

To match the aged looked of the book cover, I distressed the Relics using a sanding block and a bit of iridescent bronze acrylic paint.

My next step was to create corners for the book cover using the same handmade paper I had chosen earlier. I cut out 2 corner shapes using 1 die from Spellbinders Gold Corbels and Accents set.

These were then glued onto the upper and lower right corners of the book cover.

The last element for the book cover was created by using die #1 from Spellbinders A2 Filigree Delight. Two pieces of pewter foil were cut and the outer portion of the die cuts saved. In addition, a vintage book page with Latin text was cut into 2 pieces using the same die, but only the inner portion of the die cuts were used for this project.

The foil was distressed with a sanding block and the paper was altered with dye ink.

The two parts of the die cut were put together and both were adhered to the book.

Now complete, my project - titled Monarch - will now be waiting to become the cover of the next hand bound book I make.

Monarch

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Supply List

Spellbinders Paper Art Supplies:

GC-001 Spellbinders® Grand Calibur^® Die Cutting and Embossing Machine
GC-015 Spellbinders® Grand Calibur^® Junior Magnetic Placement Mat
GLLD-001Spellbinders® A Gilded Life Petit Monarch Die
S2-072 Spellbinders^® Shapeabilities^® Antique Corner Die 
S4-432 Spellbinders^® Shapeabilities^® Gold Corbels and Accent Die 
S5-177 Spellbinders^® Nestabilities^® A2 Filigree Delight Die
GLR-001 Spellbinders^®A Gilded Life Relics A
GLR-002 Spellbinders^®A Gilded Life Relics B
GLF-001 Spellbinders® A Gilded Life Foil Pack

Preferred Promotional Partners: Tsukineko® Memento Dew Drop Dye Ink Pad, Imagine Crafts® Inkblushers Sponge

Other: vintage book cover, hand painted paper, vintage book page, pen, awl, metal brads, sanding block, acrylic paint, adhesive, scissor