Paste-painted Dura-Lar Book

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I discovered that the paste-painted Wet Media Dura-Lar that I mentioned in the last post can be cut, folded and stitched. I made a miniature book with it. The only problem was that it didn’t stay shut. The pages insisted on staying open.

However, magnets in the covers solved that problem.

And the magnets can keep the book open in a circle too. (My favorite source for these is K&J Magnetics.)

The bits of colored plastic visible in the top picture are vending machine capsules. They will be explained soon.

14 thoughts on “Paste-painted Dura-Lar Book”

  2. Thanks! Much appreciated.

    I'm also glad you were able to comment. There have been problems with Blogger today…

    Reply

  3. I love this little book! And your idea with the magnet is so clever – I'm filing that away in my memory banks (I hope!!!)
    I just love the look of the paste on the dura-lar. I'm entranced with things you can see through! And I'm amazed to hear you can fold it without it splitting. Did you score it? Or just go over the fold with a bone folder? Or some other trick? I must dig mine out and play with it some more.

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  4. Thanks Amanda! Much appreciated. I can't take credit for the magnets. Another book person once recommended these extra strong little ones to me, and I've seen them used before to hold open star books and the like. They are pretty neat.

    I love playing around with transparent pages and things too! I keep feeling like this Dura-lar is too good to be true. Indeed, it hasn't cracked, and the paste paint has stayed on it beautifully, even on the folds. I only used a bone folder without scoring. I do think it's important to use the stuff that's formulated to accept paint, rather than any kind of mylar or such. I do hope you play around with it–I'd love to see what you come up with.

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  5. OK…I'm not sure what Dura-lar is, but I see Amanda has some so it must be available here.
    I checked out Tyvek when I was in NY and it seems fairly expensive to buy as yardage.
    But those magnets? Yes, they are good.And I think it's possible to buy bigger ones which hold a greater weight.

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  6. Blogger just dumped a longish response I was putting together for you. Thank you, Blogger. The short answer is that there are at least a couple of mail order sources for Dura-lar Wet Media in Australia, from what I could tell. Rather than me trying to retrieve the links, it might be more efficient to do a search from your end, if you were interested. I also said that I'm not entirely sure what Dura-lar is myself, but that it seems to be a proprietary mylar-like material. It comes in several formulations, including one that specifically is for wet media.

    Tyvek where I am is unaffordable (and mail order only) as yardage. I sometimes get some large sheets of it from hollanders.com (for those of us on this continent), but mostly I cut up Tyvek envelopes and work small.

    The magnets are wonderful. I don't know if you have a distributor like http://www.kjmagnetics.com/ at your end (?). I wrote a while back about trying out some of different sizes: http://paperchipmunk.blogspot.com/2010/03/more-magnetic-attraction.html Fun.

    I'm a bit distracted at the moment…it's past the cats' dinnertime. Larry almost sounds human when he's annoyed. It's almost unnerving. It's a good thing they haven't figured out how to shut off the computer…yet…

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  8. Congratulations on being a Stylish Blogger. And a talented one too.
    Swam today (1.5k) so tired but OK. How are you?

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  9. Thanks Angela. I'll have to think about this one… (I'm slow too!) Loved (if that's quite the word!) the story of the hand on your blog…surgeons…!

    And thanks Elephant's Child. You're so kind. What a swim you had–wow. That's wonderful you can do that, physical payback aside. I'm good, thanks. I'm still on for teaching that book class. I had a nice chat with the co-owner with whom my brain froze the other day. She's still quite enthusiastic (and incredibly nice and likable). Now I have to come up with something suitable…

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  10. You are very welcome Ellen. No rush with the response it took me ages to get round to mine (my feeble excuse – I had a week of the flu in there somewhere).

    These little books are beautiful. I love the colours too. I think the magnet idea is really clever. I don't think I would have come up with that solution in a million years. My brain doesn't work that way – the little hamster often falls of his little wheel ;-)

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  12. I love this little book! And your idea with the magnet is so clever – I'm filing that away in my memory banks (I hope!!!)
    I just love the look of the paste on the dura-lar. I'm entranced with things you can see through! And I'm amazed to hear you can fold it without it splitting. Did you score it? Or just go over the fold with a bone folder? Or some other trick? I must dig mine out and play with it some more.

    Reply

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