Monday, January 21, 2013

Tyvek for Strength




Detail of my altered book.

The black center of these two pages, is a strip of Tyvek that I printed.  It's holding an added page, and also covers the stubs of a few pages I removed from the book.

I always loved using this material when I was working in my altered books.  It's very strong and won't tear easily, but can be cut with scissors,  It prints roughly, and that's perfect for my kind of books.  I used it to add pages and reinforce the edges of weaker ones.

It's a non woven polyethylene material that's used for many items - I save the odd envelope that comes in the mail, and cut it to letter size so it will print on my printer.  I print thin vertical-type designs and then cut the page into strips and feed through my Xyron machine.  I don't think I've tried other adhesives, but the Xyron glue is extremely strong with Tyvek.