Gilded Papers From Book Pages

A couple of months ago, a friend of mine was going to get rid of some of her old Readers Digest Condensed books. She told me that the edges of the book were gilded in gold. Since she was going to put them in the recycling bin anyhow, I asked if I could have one. After I got it, I other two side's edges with a yellow gold acrylic, which looks not too bad, but it is not nearly as nice as the top metallic edges. The pages are aged, and look like an ivory color now, which is perfect for antique style quilling.

I also came across a small pocket calendar that someone had given to me a few years ago. I kept it, as the pages were bright white, and all of the edges were gilded in a very shiny metallic gold. Again, perfect for quilling! For both the readers Digest, and the calendar booklet, I pull some pages out when I need them, and then just trim either 1/8" or 1/16" wide strips, using my Fiskars Euro Trimmer (pages then go in our recycling bin). The paper is lighter in weight, but it still rolls pretty well. For both, the shine of the gold edges is comparable to the high shine of Jane Jenkins's gilded quilling strips. The following are 2 similar cards I made with both the ivory and the white gilded strips. It's hard to get a great picture, because of the amount of metallic shine from the gold edges. I hope you like them. They are both birthday cards, using the Cuttlebug Happy Birthday folder for the background. Both ovals are from Spellbinders Nestabilities. I did the edges gold using a Krylon 18ct. Gold Leafing pen.  This has me keeping my eye out for old books with gold edges....Enjoy, and as usual, all comments welcome!