Craft kind of does that for me, along with being outdoors - especially when a day's bright and blue sky - and writing fiction. (Even when that fiction doesn't get anywhere near being published. Didn't get further than the longlist of the HWA competition. Oh well, never mind. At least I made the long list.)
So, even when it feels like the world's going to Hell in a handcart, I'll blog about patchwork or making Gelli prints or reading a good book ...
Okay, let's begin with my delayed Wednesday craft book review. I've chosen 'Lotta Prints' by Lotta Jansdotter. It's subtitled 'How to print with anything from potatoes to linoleum', and was published in 2008. She's a Scandanavian textile designer and author of a dozen books, and has an easily recognisable modern, stylish approach to her designs. They're deceptively simple. 
The book includes info on how to print with rubber stamps, leaves, stencils, potatoes, lino blocks and screen printing. A lot of the shapes made are organic, inspired by Nature. Things you can copy or adapt, and most can be made without great cost in terms of buying extra craft supplies. 
You can print on to table runners, napkins, cards, curtains, cushions and tea towels, and take inspiration from what you see in your everyday life, as suggested in the photo above. 
I love this design, printed on to brown paper and used for gift wrap. Such a simple yet effective pattern. 
'Lotta Prints' makes printing at home easily accessible and it's clear, crisp layout makes for an easy reference book to use. Though I do wish the font size was a wee bit bigger, and done in black rather than grey. 
I think if you admire the Scandi style and want to replicate it in your home, this book's a great introduction to textile printing, and a welcome addition to your bookshelf.
Let's move on to other matters, shall we? There are a few things I'd like to tell you about. I've been doing my regular charity shop trawls, and picked up these goodies for about a quid each. 
I've read Kate Mosse's 'The City of Tears' and really enjoyed it, so was happy to find 'Citadel, another novel set in France. 'The City of Tears' was set in the 1500s, in Carcassonne, Paris and Amsterdam, while 'Citadel' is Carcassonne again but in 1942, wartime France. My other charity shop buys were an address book from Paperchase - which I intend to repurpose as an art journal - and a filofax which I'll use as a general notebook / wallet.
I also bought via eBay some die cuts for tags a.k.a. luggage labels. I couldn't find any pre-made labels of the size I wanted, but can cut my own using these die cuts and my Sissix machine. 
They can be decorated for gift tags, or assembled into books and those books used for making collages in. Speaking of collaging, I've been tarting up the simple book I made out of white envelopes the other day. I've chopped up handprinted paper and used it for the book's front and back covers. 
I still want to add some black lettering, but not sure what form that'll take yet. 
These inside pages show the envelope opening on the right. 
I used masking tape on the underside of this decorated tag to attach it to this page. Love the combination of pink and purple, and the grungy look from the stencil and bubble wrap. 
The sparkly tape in the photo above is from four rolls of decorative sellotape picked up for 49p in Home Bargains. That's where I also bought these Jane Asher food colouring gels for 99p each. 
The range of colours - red, green, blue - was pretty limited, but I wanted 'em as I'd seen a video on YouTube of a crafter who'd made her own spray paints from cake colouring in gel form that'd been diluted with water. She used them in her art journals. I bought the plastic atomiser bottles from Hobbycraft. They come in a pack of four, though I can't recall the price. 
It's hit and miss about the quantity of dye and water required, but you can get some good effects with these sprays, and they're fun to experiment with. Hobbycraft did have a much wider colour range, but they were more expensive than Home Bargains, and I didn't want to splurge until I'd practised with cheap products and decided whether using diluted gels were worth the effort.
Finally, I'm going to wrap up this extra-long blog post with another simple book, this time made from fabric. It's part of my October exploration of book making. The original instruction video was on - inevitably - YouTube, and the maker used tea dyed fabric and went for a sepia vintage effect. Mine's a little different, but the construction method's basically the same. 
You begin with four rectangles of cardboard that'll form your pages. Mine were approx 5 and half cm x 7 and half cm. 
Lay them on a piece of fabric of your choice. This material will form the inside of your fabric book. Mine was a soft, cream coloured brushed cotton. It needs to be longer and wider than your four evenly spaced rectangles. Glue them on to the fabric. I splashed PVA around, but in hindsight that was too liquid. I'd have been better off with a glue stick.
Now, choose your book's outer fabric. I picked a couple of pinks, one plain and the other scattered with gold hearts. I applied glue then laid the outer fabric on top of the cardboard, enclosing the card like it was the filling in a sandwich. Use pins to keep everything in place, then sew a running stitch around and in between the cardboard shapes. Trim the edges so your outer and inner fabric are the same size.
The idea is to enjoy the imperfections, so you don't worry about raw edges to the fabric or slightly wonky seams. (I mean, if you're a perfectionist, you can keep everything super-neat. If you really feel the need.)
Then you want to embellish your book. I added an extra flap of fabric to lengthen the cover and some pink grosgrain ribbon. Inside the book I stuck shapes/textures that appealed to me. You can use paper, card, braid, more ribbon, embroidery, anything you like.
I added an old black & white photograph too. My long-gone grandmother, Ellen Pugh, picking fruit in 1949. 
Finally, I sewed on a bead and thin yellow ribbon to form a fastening, and rolled up the book, winding the ribbon's tail around the book then around the bead to keep everything in place.
This'll be a great project for using up those vintage tablecloths, tray covers and napkins found in charity shops, the ones embroidered with daisies and often marred by holes from cigarette burns or rips where the material's worn thin. You could also adapt the idea to use for a needle book.
Well, that's another blog post done. I hope something was of interest to you!
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