Last Saturday I went to my local craft group monthly crop. What a fun time we had. One of the very talented members kindly offered to do a workshop on creating a note book. What was mind blowing was the unusual material she used to make the cover. What was it you may ask? It was washable wallpaper lining that looked and felt like soft leather once we had processed it. Its a waterproof paper that doesn't rip and is pretty tough. Decorators use it to cover cracked walls. The brand we used was called "Wall Doctor" It always amazes me how people have the imagination to try using unusual materials and products to create such lovely things.
4. Whilst the cover fabric was drying we turned our attention to the book pages. The pages were ea and coffee coloured copy paper. We cut the A4 paper in half and folded each piece in half and inserted inside each page to create the booklet/signature. I stamped a couple of pages to add some interest inside the book.5. Once the cover fabric was thoroughly dry we trimmed it and the copy paper to size and placed the booklet inside the cover. We fixed the signature to the cover with needle and thread.
How did we do it?
1 We took the flat paper and scrunched it up and kept opening and scrunching and scrunching ans scrunching until the paper was well crumpled and had softened! I have to say my hands ached by the time this process was over!
2, We then washed the paper in soapy water and rinsed it clean and allowed it to dry slightly.
3. We coloured the paper using diluted acrylic paints and sprays. You do need a lot of paint because it really soaked into the paper. For some reason most of the colours I used disappeared into the material and it became a pale cinnamon colour with some gold splodges. I like it though. The paper was left to thoroughly dry.
4. Whilst the cover fabric was drying we turned our attention to the book pages. The pages were ea and coffee coloured copy paper. We cut the A4 paper in half and folded each piece in half and inserted inside each page to create the booklet/signature. I stamped a couple of pages to add some interest inside the book.5. Once the cover fabric was thoroughly dry we trimmed it and the copy paper to size and placed the booklet inside the cover. We fixed the signature to the cover with needle and thread.
We decorated the finished book in anyway we wanted. I used beads,charm, a mirri card butterfly and some pearls.
I think this book cover would look fabulous as a cover for a mixed media art journal. Its strength would also make it great to strengthen folds/hinges when making mini albums...... the possibilities are endless!
Thank you so much Beryl at Crafters Cwtch, Magor for your marvelous workshop! 
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