Book Edges Question

[Alicia Edwards]

Hi! I've just come up from the basement where I had a very empowering session with my ex-husband's Really Big Saw. No blood and no damage to the house, so I consider it a success!

So I've taken a book... um, an old encyclopedia-type book, actually, and cut some parts off of it. What do I need to do to the exposed edges of the covers? Anything? It seems like they should be sealed or something.

Thanks for any suggestions.

[Stacie Williams]

Oh I love powertools! I guess it would depend on what you were going to do with it. Sealing the edges with gel medium might work, but it might also still peel back. Is it cloth covered? Will you be doing something to the cover also? If I were going to be painting the cover, I might add some gaffer's tape around the edges, then paint over it. I'm not sure....I look forward to reading other's ideas & seeing your finished project.

[Alicia Edwards]

It doesn't appear to be cloth covered. I am going to do something to the cover, but I haven't gotten that far yet. I'm going to look up gaffer's tape now. :)

Thanks!

[Alicia Edwards]

Okay, a search at the lowes web site yielded nothing. Do I have to order this or will I find it some place locally?

[Stacie Williams]

Don't think you'd find it at Lowe's. A store that sells scrapbooking stuff would probably have some printed. Some of the major mfrs are marketing it (7 gypsies comes to mind first). That's what I've got, it's not plain it's printed with stuff. Or you could google it & get a wad of it. I keep saying I'm going to get a huge roll of black, but then I'm not having a lot of book art time so I forget. It's nice because of the way it tears. But at your local home improvement store you could probably find a cloth based tape which would work too. Even duct tape, or a good electrical tape. Anything that will stay stuck but still accept any wet media that you might do on top of it.

[Sharon Bruner]

Alicia, I would think you would need to cover it......with something pretty substantial... like maybe even cloth...I tried it with gel sealer once and painted over
that, but in the end, it peeled up anyway..................maybe Stacie's suggestion
of gaffer tape/paint would work..........I've used gaffer tape to help stabilize
book spines before and it worked well.............

[Sandi Wedemeier]

i'm rather fond of silver tape. it can be found in your local hardware store in (i think) the plumbing section. it's used to wrap leaky pipes or can at least be used on wet surfaces.

it's kinda wide but easy to cut. i just went in and asked for 'silver tape'. but the guys at the hardware store are rather used to me asking for odd stuff and coming to them with weird ideas.

[Alicia Edwards]

I'll give silver tape a shot. It looks like I have to drive across town to get gaffer's tape (it's a big town with a lot of traffic) and I haven't been able to set aside time to go this week. Sandi do you know if one can paint on silver tape?

Thanks for the suggestion!

[Stacie Williams]

You can paint on it but it might scratch off a bit. You can emboss it. You'll have fun with it ;-)

[Alicia Edwards]

Thanks, Stacie. I haven't crossed the boundary into the embossing world yet. Another something to learn!

[Stacie Williams]

;-) That's what's so cool.....always more to play with!

[Karen Campbell]

Wow -- I just found the forum :) You are probably done with your book by now, Alicia LOL BUt I thought I would chime in anywayt -- maybe someine will find it useful in the future. I cut a 3-ring notbook down with a saw. The edges looked ghastly, so I glued white tissue paper over my edges. You can build up a few layers and once it dries and gets painted, it looks very natural.

[Alicia Edwards]

Karen, thanks for your note. You didn't have any problems with the layers separating?