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Traveler’s Notebook Restoration
May. 10th, 2022 10:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annofowlshireI recently posted the story of my Traveler’s Notebook, but a long story short, I’ve had it for about 6 years now. It is beloved, cherished, and the teal color on it was fading. A lot. I didn’t mind that it looked well-used and worn, but the brown-blue areas just looked like it was dusty or dirty to me.
I considered replacing it, or maybe seeing if the original maker could redye it, but she no longer carries the color, and I have a lot of sentimental value for this one. So I did a little research on leather dyes and how to restore colored leather.
It turns out that there are polishes and such in a variety of colors made for restoring items like colored leather shoes and handbags, so I picked up one that was relatively close to the shade of my notebook and set about to doing several coats and polishes over a few days to build up the color.
Teal photographs badly at the best of times, but this somewhat illustrates the difference after only a couple of applications. It doesn’t look brand new (and I wouldn’t expect it to), but it definitely has some color back and doesn’t look like it’s been dropped in the dirt instead of well-loved, ha ha. Given how much it gets handled, I’m curious to see how long before I’ll want to apply more.
I considered replacing it, or maybe seeing if the original maker could redye it, but she no longer carries the color, and I have a lot of sentimental value for this one. So I did a little research on leather dyes and how to restore colored leather.
It turns out that there are polishes and such in a variety of colors made for restoring items like colored leather shoes and handbags, so I picked up one that was relatively close to the shade of my notebook and set about to doing several coats and polishes over a few days to build up the color.
Teal photographs badly at the best of times, but this somewhat illustrates the difference after only a couple of applications. It doesn’t look brand new (and I wouldn’t expect it to), but it definitely has some color back and doesn’t look like it’s been dropped in the dirt instead of well-loved, ha ha. Given how much it gets handled, I’m curious to see how long before I’ll want to apply more.
