Faux Leather Tutorial - Cthulhu Cultist Book

Faux Leather Tutorial

Cthulhu Cultist Book

So I made this ^ from a book I had in the "donate" bin in our spare room. I decided to call it "Deep Ones" and use a sigil from the Cthulhu mythos.

Before it looked like that, the book looked like this:

 "What Has Religion Done For Mankind" is an old Jehovah's Witness book from the 1950's. No comments on religion or the book itself - focus on the crafting 

TOOLS:
Glue gun
Craft knife
Ruler


SUPPLIES:
A cardboard box
An old book
Glue sticks for glue gun
Various acrylic paint colours including red, brown, black and gold
White gesso
material big enough to cover book
Glue
Mod Podge


TUTORIAL:

 Grab a corrugated cardboard box - using your book as a guide, cut out a border. I cut out two - one for the front and one for the back. 

 My box was double corrugated, so I had to separate it, removing one part of the corrugation. 

Glue each one of your cardboard bits to the book using white glue (I used Weldbond)

Grab your glue gun and add some "rings" around the spine.

Using some material (any colour is fine, it won't be your final colour), cut enough to cover your book. Use white glue (DO NOT water it down to do this part!) and push it into all the crevices.

Once cut and glued, it will look something like that ^

Gesso time! (if you want to avoid the lettering showing through you can either build up the gesso or base it with cereal box card before applying material)

Gesso the whole book (don't forget inside the covers!)

After the gesso is fully dry, give the whole book a base colour - I chose red for mine. From here onwards it's all about building up your colours, mixing colours and adding your own details.

This is my super messy paint palette - I had a red, a dark brown and then a pot of both mixed.

The book spine - I used some black here, dry brushing it along the edges.

After I had a good base of paint - I sort of dabbed some globs on the book where I wanted the red to shine through and with my fingers I sort of "smacked" at the paint. I don't know how else to describe it. lol

After all my smudging and smacking, etc. it looks like that ^

Mod Podge time! One layer - maybe two. I used glossy, but that's only because I didn't have any matte.

Then I used my glue gun to make a sigil and title

I glued them on using white glue and then adjust paint on them - Mod Podge over them.

Once it's dry, you're done! Here's some "after" pictures: