Here’s the cover I’m doing for my altered book.  I used a piece of vegetable cured leather, 4-5oz.  I wanted to have the look of cord-bound book, so I wrapped plastic over the book (to protect it from water) then wound it with twine.  I got the leather wet and stretched it over the twine to get that design. 

Since I put the water only on the spine, that’s the only part that really stretched. 

When that dried, I painted one side with water and tooled a design into it. 

When that dried, I did the same to the other side. 

Tomorrow, the painted version.

Mistakes I learned from:

When you cut into the leather, it leaves a narrow groove that the paint doesn’t want to go into.  I had the right idea of putting india ink into the groove, but it would have been better had I done that before painting the acrylic.

When I trimmed the leather to match the book, I hadn’t taken the plastic off.  This made the lines a little off, and the leather got cut too short on one side.