Colourful covers for little books

Again this year, Contemporary Quilt will be raising funds for the group by selling "little notebooks" at Festival of Quilts. In the past week I've made a few dozen little blank books - what pleasure it was to paint and stamp the covers, and to choose threads for the pamphlet stitch that holds the books together.

The decorative covers start as a messy piece of cartridge paper, slathered and splashed with acrylic paints until it's plasticised -

 Then I find some stamps, either purchased or cut from lino in years past - they get painted with acrylic paint, sometimes two colours at a time -

 Stamping candidates include the odd kitchen tool - and tubes such as toilet rolls are excellent, used sparingly in a contrasting colour -

 An entire sheet (A2 size) - this will make 16 little books -

 A detail - it looks so much better when there's less of it! -

Entire sheet, almost densely patterned enough

Once it's cut to size, there's about this much on an individual book

Needs a bit more on the left

...or does it?

Love those spirals! 

Some of the collection have patterns inside the covers too
(others will be sewn on the train to FOQ)