Instructions for Creating Decorative Coloured leather, Paper or Book Covers for Case Bindings

In these two examples we have simply taken a case for a leather binding, or one covered in dark blue paper. 10-20% PVA in water is applied thinly over the cover twice, allowing the diluted PVA to dry between applications. Using hand tools heated conventionally we very roughly applied the tool in a random manner over gold foil. I should emphasise that we were not seeking perfect tooling, just a rough but random effect.

We then took a selection of foils purchased from Foilco, but any foils will do, and crumpled them up in the hand a few times so that speckles of foil are dislodged. We then placed different coloured folis over the leather or paper based case bindings and roughly but quickly ran the heated gilding roller over the foil. I used one hand to do this so not too much pressure was applied. Sometimes there was good adherence and with some foils less, and in the latter repeated the process.

The effect is quite pleasing (or at least to my eyes) and converting a boring blue cover to something quite interesting.