Dos-a-Dos Book with Kirsten

Here's what I used:

• 140lb watercolor paper by Canson
• Gesso
• Dina Wakley Media acrylic paints in White, Night, Gilt and Ruby
• Artistcellar stencils: Shooting Stars from the Arabian Nights series and Infra from the Quasicrystals series
• Simple bookmaking supplies (ruler, bonefolder, waxed linen thread, needle and small awl)
• 5 sheets of plain ol' copy paper cut down to 4.25 x 5.5 

The watercolor paper will be my cover so I start by putting a thin layer of gesso on both sides. The next layer is the Night color which I spread over the paper with an old hotel key card. This was done on both sides. Now it is time for stencils! I used the Shooting stars stencil twice on each side with two different colors. Small accents were created with the Infra stencil. The paper was then cut down to 9x4.75 and using a ruler and bone folder I scored lines at the 3inch and 6inch lines to be able to fold my paper into thirds.

Prepare the inside paper by folding the paper in half and creating two signatures with ten sheets each. The signatures were then stitched to the cover using a simple three hole pamphlet stitch. I put the completed book under heavy weights overnight to help flatten it more and now it is ready to tuck in my purse ready to be filled with lists, ideas and drawings!

I hope this inspires you to create a little book this week and I encourage you to do a quick web search for more beautiful Dos-a-Dos books. I hope you have a creative week!