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Today’s newsletter is going to be all about the marbling process.
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Those of you who have bought a book from me at a live event know that as part of the purchasing process, you get to choose your own bookmark, made from paper that I marbled.
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I’m currently almost out of bookmarks. I only have twenty on hand. However, I needed to marble more paper before I could make additional bookmarks. Plus, I’m still hoping that before the Big Event (August 22, the release of the last of the Water Witch mysteries, “The Bad Apple Witch”) I will be able to marble the edges of some of my books. (!!!)
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Stay tuned about that fun. Not there yet, but working on getting it.
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I bought myself my first marbling kit back in 2006. I LOVED it. Loved the process, as well as the results. I’ve been marbling paper ever since.
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The problem? I had all this beautiful paper and didn’t have any use for it. I made postcards out of some of it, and Christmas cards, but I had way more product than I knew what to do with.
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When I figured out that I could make bookmarks out of it, I got really excited. I now get to regularly participate in a craft that I truly enjoy, AND I have an excellent way to share what I produce!
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The first step for marbling is applying alum (aluminum sulfate) to the paper. You do this so that the paint will adhere better to the surface of the paper. I generally do this the day before, so the paper has a chance to dry. I hang the paper up, then use a spray bottle to apply the alum to it. After the paper dries, I put it under something that’s heavy to flatten it out.
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In addition to preparing the paper, I also make the liquid that I’ll “float” the paints on. You really need to find the Goldilocks version of it—too thick and your paint won’t spread, too thin and your paint won’t float but instead sinks to the bottom of your pan.
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I’ve been using methyl cellulose and I’m not one-hundred-percent pleased with the results. I’ve bought myself some carrageenan to experiment with next week. (Yes, there will be pictures. Stay tuned!)
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After mixing up the methyl cellulose, you have to let it sit for at least four hours, but preferably twenty-four. When you first mix it, there are so many bubbles in it. Bubbles are bad. You'll end up with spots on your paper where there's no paint due to bubbles.
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Then comes marbling day! Here’s my table. I put my paints into cups, with droppers in each color. At the far end is the pan where I have my thick liquid.
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So here is what the paint in the liquid looks like. This liquid isn’t thick enough, IMO, as too much of the paint is dropping immediately to the bottom of the pan. But it’s good enough for today.
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Then I start to swirl the paint. I have sticks I can use. I also have combs. I have three sizes of combs, with varying distance between the teeth. This comb has the narrowest distance between the teeth. You’ll also note a gap. When I’m going up and down in the pan, that gap fits over the edge of the pan. The way that the comb is made, I can easily adjust the gap as needed, based on the size of the pan.
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It’s difficult to get a picture of what the liquid looks like when the paint is swirled. I don’t have a lot of time after I swirl the paint before I need to put the paper on it. The methyl cellulose mixture is too thin. The paint will sink if I waste time, and I won’t get a good image transferred onto the paper. (The dark rectangle at one end is my phone.)
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Eventually, the methyl cellulose grows too muddy and I can’t see anything in it, so I end up dumping it out and starting fresh. I got three batches out of the last gallon of methyl cellulose I made, and ended up with fifteen pieces of marbled paper that turned out well. (I actually marbled nineteen pieces of paper. Fifteen were usable, four were not.)
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After I marble the paper, I hang it to dry. On the ground, you can see some of the pieces that are too faint to be usable.
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And here’s one of the final pieces. I took this while it was still wet. It faded some while it dried. This is partly why I’m trying the carrageenan next week, to see if I can get the more vivid colors to stay true.
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After the paper has dried and is flattened, I glue cardstock to the back of it. After that dries, I glue the text that I put on the back of the bookmark to the cardstock. Then I cut them up into bookmarks. I get eight bookmarks per piece of marbled paper. These are the bookmarks that I made with the last batch of marbled paper.
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And that’s it! That’s the process. Again, I’m something of a crafter at heart. I love that I get to share my craft as well as my words and my worlds with my readers.
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Any questions? Any requests? Let me know!
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It's July! And yes, we're offering another of my books on sale. This time, it's Live Alien Contact Omnibus.
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In the twenty-third century, one question haunts Humanity.
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Why are the aliens ghosting us? Aren’t we cool enough?
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Spread out over three hundred planets, Humans have run across the remains of only two alien species to date. Both suffered cataclysmic wars centuries before.
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Surely more aliens must be out there. Somewhere.
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Join Rosey the racer and the other quirky character on The Roadrunner (yes, run by Dennis, who'd much rather be designing things than flying a spaceship!) as they go searching for aliens.
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Though June has come and gone, we're still offering The Long Run Omnibus on sale for merely $9.99! That means four novels (yes, FOUR novels) for the cost of two. What a bargain!
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In addition, this collection is only available on the Knotted Road Press store. (Though if you go to see Leah at a live sales event, she will sell you the paper version, also for a bargain, at just $40. That's $10 a book, instead of $15 for each.)
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Judit—a hard-headed captain of a starship who may swear too much in Hungarian—gets hired by a powerful alien to break the stranglehold that the Universal Trading Cartel has on, well, everyone in the galaxy.
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Follow Judit and her quirky alien crew as they con their way across planets and through star systems, as well as all the corporate machinations.
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This omnibus contains all four books in this completed series!
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They say history doesn't repeat itself, but it will frequently rhyme.
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However, what about crimes that get repeated? How are they similar to the original? How are they different? And why?
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The devil is in the details, after all.
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Come see what the syndicate members of MCM have done with crimes that riff off of events from the past.
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MCM. So Criminal, It's Good.
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