tree and leaf

This ATC was hand needlefelted (background) on a piece of batting.  It took a bit of cogitation, but then I decided it needed a tree, so I stitched one. I finished with a very untidy blanket stitch,lol.

Since I was playing with the hand felting tool, I decided to make a leaf, but instead of batting or felt or anything solid, I felted it onto tulle.

Here it is.  You can just see the netting, which I can cut off or use a soldering iron to cut., but wait, there's more.
When I turned it over...

It had this really cool fur-like texture on the back where the fibers had been pushed through.  It reminds me of a possum's fur and is really soft.  Now I know this will come in handy.... when inspiration strikes.

something else I did a few days ago was to recover my journal.
Usually, I start with White glue and acrylic paint mixed together to both seal and cover the surface at the same time.  This time, I started with white paint and glue, but remembered an experiment I did a few weeks ago.

I had been reading about the different texture mediums being marketed and I thought "What if I just" so I mixed a few things with white glue and added them to my practice journal to see what would happen. 
From top left, clockwise they are - seed beads, herbal tea mixture, sawdust and glitter. 
I wasn't reall impressed with the beads, but perhaps even tinier ones might work?  The Tea mix was interesting and I liked the green tinge in the glue.  The sawdust was really great, and of course having a woodturner for a spouse means we have tons of that, lol.  The glitter was very transparent, but made a beautiful suface, so might be useful over something else.

So, back to the experiment at hand - I had painted my page with a white acrylic/PVA mixture, but decided it was a bit boring for a cover and just grabbed the leftovers from the above experiment at random.  They were unlabeled and in opaque tubs.

It turned out to be the herb tea mix, and I dabbed it all over the wet white paint/glue.  I liked it, but wondered whether the texture would be durable enough for a book cover.
In a moment of inspiration, I grabbed some tissue paper and covered over the pain, glue and tea. 

You can see above a close up of the texture, which reminds me of those expensive japanese papers.
The tissue folded in places and became almost translucent and it made a beautiful cover for the book.

 I was concerned that it would not be durable, but it is pretty solid now that it is totally dry.  I may just seal it with some PVA to make sure, but I haven't made up my mind yet whether I want to add some colour.  I have in mind some lovely watercolour dribbles that blend together.  I will just have to try that out in my practice book.  But I am very pleased with this old textbook which I use as a personal journal.

A bit to get through today!