re vamping phone case with card.

This is something different.
My phone case had seen better days and the leatherette had started to peel before lockdown started. It got so bad a couple of weeks ago I couldn't stand looking at it. so a recovered it in a checked fabric with a tonne of PVA glue.. …     I didn't like that look either. 








I was working on a project for school and it reminded me of some faux leather book covers I made a while back. So I decided to give the technique a whirl and try recovering my phone case with it.


(I did a tutorial on making faux leather from card  quite sometime ago.  I'll post  a link to this tutorial before I finish this post.) 

All that's needed is  for this technique is glycerine, water,  PVA glue, ink or paint and matt acrylic varnish. 
I used acrylic paint on this project on my mini booklets  I used ink pads.




https://kimberkreations-laura.blogspot.com/2016/04/mini-embossed-faux-leather-booklets.html

Here I spritzed  both sides of black card stock with a mix of glycerine and water and let it soak in for a little while, then crumpled up the card gently. 
I kept spritzing the card and crumpling it until it was soft and pliable. Being careful not to tear the card as I open it up after each crunching.

I let the card dry out a little then embossed it.  A little tip here ...Place a sheet of folded kitchen roll under the embossing folder make sure some of it is sticking out from under the folder.  This will soak up any water that's squeezed out of the card as it's run it through the die cutting machine.  Once  the card had completely dried,  I painted it with black acrylic paint, using gentle brush strokes  so as not to damage the embossing. 
I used  a heat gun to speed up drying.  Once the paint was dry,  I gave it a couple of coats  of matt acrylic varnish  and allowed it to dry completely. When the varnish  was dry I spritzed  the back of the card with the glycerine /water solution to soften the card up again.  But not soaking it completely.  It was then a case of applying PVA to the phone case and gently  applying the card to the phone case and molding it  around the corners. This is quite easy  to do when the card is damp.   I applied plenty of PVA to the phone  case making sure I had a fairly even coat all over especially on the edges and corners.  I allowed it to dry and trimmed away any  excess card  at button points and the camera lens. Once dry   I brushed a little   more PVA to the edges and corners. for added strength.
The end result is the card looks like leather,  feels like leather,  but I am pretty sure it won't last as long as leather.  I will have to  do an update later, when it starts to break down and look shabby.

Well we're three and half months on from the day of this post and I am pleased to say my card phone is holding up well. I did have to apply a little mod podge to a crack that appeared on the folding  parts which seems to have fixed it for now... I am rather impressed on just how well this holding up..