the astronauts of crafting

Hello friends!  Did you have a good weekend?  Ours was lovely and felt super spring-like, which made it even better. 

Have you noticed that old book pages seem to be the background of choice this spring?  I keep seeing them at Anthropologie, in the Land's End catalogue- everywhere!  Since Steve and I take a lot of pictures, both for fun and for the shop, we decided to make some weathered looking pages of our own for backdrops. 

We bought a book from the dollar rack outside Books-A-Million.  As we were standing in line to pay, I commented to Steve, "this book will be perfect for tearing up."  At this point, I got distracted by something on display near the register, but Steve claims that both the woman in front of us and the cashier looked in our direction as if we'd just admitted to drowning kittens.  So then he replied, "Yes, this book will be great for our craft project.  It's just the thing we needed for our craft project."  And I said, "Why do you keep saying "craft project" so loud?" 

So, back at home, where we can tear up books without being judged, we made some strong tea and tried several methods of staining the pages.  I was worried about them getting wrinkled, so I mostly dipped the edges.  Steve did a few full submersions, because he's brave like that. 

(Incidentally, the book was about sushi.  A whole book about sushi?!  Who could blame us for using it for something other than reading?)

We let the pages dry overnight, but were sad to find that the tea stains faded a lot as they dried.  I think we'll try something else to get a darker color.  Soy sauce?  Balsamic vinegar?  Shoe polish?

Today I am sewing like crazy as I try to finish some more items in my spring line.  It is a lot of fun and a lot of work.  Our goal is to have a photo shoot this coming weekend, which means I only have four more days to finish up!