My husband has got to be one of the hardest people to buy presents for in the world! He is even more picky about things than I am and if he wants anything (which is usually some random piece of bicycle or skateboard), he will just buy it for himself – behaviour I find inconsiderate and unacceptable on the run up to the festive season.
In an attempt to remedy this eternal struggle, I decided to make his Christmas presents this year as then he woud have to like them and there would be no way they could be returned to the shops – ha ha! I had seen these great etched Moleskines here and like an excited puppy, I raced out to the shops to buy an A5 sketchbook. Then the problems started…
I had assumed (wrongly) that the covers of these books were going to be leather. They are not. The first attempt I made at adding a design was with a mini Dremel. This was bad and looked awful. I then tried using a pyrographic tool – very very bad move! By this point, I was really upset with myself as I had essentially ruined a perfectly good Moleskine book which made me feel guilty and annoyed at having wasted the money on the experiment. The only way I could see out of it was to cut away all the parts of the cover that I had made such a mess of and see where that left me. Turns out this was a good decision. The top layer of the PVC cover came away quite easily, leaving the paper layer underneath exposed. I finished off the design, and then sealed all the cut areas with a few layers of PVA to keep it all protected and waterproof. Lastly I lined the insides with some vintage lining paper I had and the job was a good’un – PHEW!
My conclusion: I think I need to buy myself a laser etching machine – hmmmmm……..
birdface.net 
Cool!