So I spent last night finishing up my most recent Steampunk journal while re-watching a 3rd-season ep (or is it called season 2 now?) of Primeval (well, “listening” to it, anyway–it’s not easy sewing a book while watching tv, even just a pamphlet). This journal’s a bit different because I broke out of the brown/black/copper color scheme I’d been focused on and tried something quite different…

Red. I’ve been using Eco-Flo for dying the leather–they’re water-based colors (dyes and highlighters) for leather sold by Tandy–and their Scarlet is a nice, rich red. Their All-In-One stain and finish is awful but the dye and highlighters are pretty nice, although getting a really even spread on the dyes isn’t always easy unless you’re using a darker color. For me, they’re perfect, though, because I much prefer the less even look anyway.

These designs always start out simple and then grow into rather complex and involved projects that have me researching something online and spending more time than I ought on detailing a piece. On the upside, I find a lot of really fascinating websites that I never knew existed. For instance, e-Leo, which is an online archive of da Vinci’s diaries and papers (you have to register with this site for access–I imagine they’re protecting copyrights with that–but it’s well worth it).

Although da Vinci is well before the Victorian era, where most Steampunk seems to live, the inventions and ideas he came up with fit rather neatly with the “feel.” And, considering that the mechanical clock was invented in the 13th or 14th century (at least a century before Leonardo), it doesn’t seem too much of a stretch for me to land on da Vinci at least once while working on one of these.

Truthfully, though, the idea came because I had some stray black marks show up on the inside of the journal and I didn’t want to dye the inside covers this time, so I started thinking about what kind of design I could do on the inside to incorporate my mistakes rather than cover them up. It started me thinking about some of da Vinci’s journal pages with the sketches and mirror writing, so I decided to do something along those lines.

I’m not going to show the whole of the inside covers yet…once I’ve sold the book and the customer has a chance to look them over and “decipher” them, I’ll post them on my blog.

As for the rest of the book, black is such a nice complement to red, so I went with black velvet for the spine and black suede for the strap. The clasp/closure is part of the watch band from the watch cover I used on the front (the bottom cover with the clockwork gears). It makes an interesting closure and works surprisingly well.

The molded decorations that help hold the watch face  and watch cover in place are made with Apoxie Sculpt (a two-part epoxy clay), then painted with blackened bronzer. I used molds for part of the decoration, a leather stamp for part of it and did the rest by hand.

The paper is a mix of ivory and beige pastel paper, tea-stained watercolor paper and some naturally aged Arches watercolor paper that I got at an estate sale. The clockwork design, this time, is simpler than usual. If I’m not careful, I can spend literally days laying out a good clockwork design, so I opted for simple to reduce the time spent. Which turned out to be a good idea after I added the da Vinci aspect.

As usual, these journals give me a chance to practice my storytelling. They always seem to have some kind of “history” behind them, which is part of the appeal for me, personally. I enjoy coming up with the background to explain what their purpose is and what kind of person might have owned them. For the background on this one or if you think you can’t live without it, check my Etsy shop.

And, finally, a picture of the book “in action.” I know the listing says that the sellers have never tried it out but how can anyone resist having a couple of “extra” hours to get some things done?