Silk Purse from Sow's Ear

So after four-plus years of Blackletter classes at Atelier Gargoyle, I had acquired an impressive pile of butcher paper practice sheets that it seemed wrong to throw away.  One of my classmates had suggested I use them for wrapping paper, which was fun and different--very cute when tied with string.  For some reason I thought to grab a few sheets as I went out the door to an evening collage class with the inimitable Anna Corba, incongruously but delightfully being held at Knitterly, a favorite local yarn store.  We were provided with kits and lots of boxes of ephemera to dig through, and I thought my walnut-inked specimens were a nice contrast to the image elements.  (Don't look too closely at the letterforms, Linnea & Ward--the sheets are really old, okay?  That's my story anyway.)

We made collages on two pieces of matboard, then coated them with melted beeswax, which gave them surprising depth and dimension.  The covers were assembled with the notebook elements and bound together with ribbon.

 A fun project and a nice mid-week escape!