Book Surgery - Art Journal

Last week when I shared some of my Art Journal with you I mentioned that I was thinking about doing surgery on the journal. The Moleskin Sketchbook that I was using has a 1/2 inch spine. The leather on the outside was holding everything together to the naked eye. However, when you opened the book you could feel the signatures shift. When you looked down the spine you could see where things were falling apart.

Definitely surgery, or else with handling the book would fall apart. I gathered my supplies, sharp scissors, gel medium, mending tissue, tissue paper, and some soft leather. I took the book to my work table and cut down the spine covering. This left about 1/4 of an inch of leather on each side.

See how the book has popped open now that the spine covering has been cut. You can see that the tissue paper that was covering the signatures has torn and rolled up. The glue is visible and the signatures are all still sewn together. That is good.

I took the spine covering and put an edge of gel medium on it and bent it back and adhered it to the covers. This left the spine totally exposed. In the above picture you can see the top is adhered and the bottom is not.

In this picture both of the pieces have been glued and tucked in nicely. I have manipulated the spine so that it is now even and full.

I glued what was left of the original spinal covering back on. Then I broke out the mending tape. This is a very thin tissue like tape with an adhesive on one side. I covered the whole spine with it leaving where the fabric book mark is based clear. Again I manipulated the spine so that the pages were aligned more and the spine was straight.

I then applied gel medium to the top of the mending tape, laid a piece of tissue on that, then covered the tissue with a layer of gel medium. Let this dry thoroughly. At this point the spine now measures almost 2 inches. That is 1 1/2 inches larger than it was. Poor spine.

Next, I glued on the leather. I found a leather that was well tanned yet sturdy. A bit thicker than the original leather. You can usually get leather scraps at a craft store, some fabric stores, or even cut up an old purse or garment you might have. I decided to use the smooth finish side. I glued the front first using gel medium. Let this dry and then turned it over and wrapped it around to the back. It is firm but not tight. There is much more to do in this journal.

This is the back side. Still thick and interesting. This journal is twice the thickness it once was.

Here you can see that I did not glue the leather to the spine, just to the covers. This gives the journal the same feel as it originally had. The mending tape and tissue are the new spine.

The front all nicely finished and ready to be worked in.