Rubezahl

Here is one of the pages of a book I am working on for my cut illustration book, Rubezahl. I'm really excited about the way this is turning out so far, but it is taking so much more time than I thought it would. More pictures when I finish it.

 

It's just set against a colored piece of cardstock in this picture. The paper I cut the illustration from is Mohawk superfine.

Showing off Mad Skills

Hwaet! My lovely parents came and visited a couple three weeks ago, and we had a grand time while they were here (well, I did anyways). It was fun and awkward trying to make them feel comfortable in our teeny tiny apartment for the weekend, and I'm just so glad they finally got to make a trip down here.

While they were here, I finished a book I started when me and the husband were up visiting them the week before. My parents are so patient to sit and watch me make a book, and I'm sure I was boring them to death as I told them about the glue I use, etc. They were rewarded though, as they got to go home with the newly finished product (well, I'm not sure what kind of a reward that is). I was quite pleased with the outcome, and I made them let me take pictures before they ran off with it. Granted, they were horribly rushed pictures that turned out to be atrocious, blurry, monstrosities, but they're all I have, so I'm going to post a couple anyways.

 

Anyways, I love the red leather (a big thank you to my parents, again) with the Italian postcards paper. The endpapers look grey to me, but everyone else said they were green. In the pictures they look green. To top it all off, I used some lovely brown and cream end bands. Again, my sincere apologies about the pictures being horrid, I hope they don't turn you off too much. At any rate, I'm not posting it on my Etsy, so they don't have to be absolutely perfect. I'll probably be making another one of these.

Vanity Fair and Plaid (coming out my ears)

I'm doing some summer reading. Is fun. After reading the newest Wheel of Time book, The Gathering Storm, I realized that I didn't have the slightest clue what was going on, so I started to re-read the series. So far there are twelve books, I think, and they're really good reading if you're into the whole fantasy genre. I like the series because there's a ton of plot detail, and the story line jumps from character to character, making it fun and quick. If I get bored or annoyed with one person, I just have to read a few more pages and it jumps to the next one. Gotta love it.

Besides that series, I recently picked up the book Vanity Fair, by William Thackeray. I'm about halfway through it right now, and I'm really enjoying it. Thackeray has an awesome sense of humor which catches me off guard sometimes, probably because I'm more used to the writing style of Jane Austen or Charlotte and Emily Bronte. He seems to enjoy making fun of his characters, much to my amusement. I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of this book plays out.

Enough about my reading escapades, my real purpose here today is to put up pictures of my latest book! It's a case bound book, but I'm happy to report that it is behaving quite nicely, and it turned out well. Finally! A case bound book that works!

 

The blue ribbon bookmark and blue and white end bands come standard with this model. Check it out in my shop!

Have I Mentioned I Love Paper?

I love paper. It makes me so happy to look over and see my stack of paper in the corner. It would make me happier to have some safe place to put it (paper drawer donations welcome), but I think I'll be fine for a little while.

 

I love marbled paper. So. Much. I marbled all of the papers in the picture above, except for the brown and blue one five in from the left. I'm not very good at it, but it's so fun! I get a sick thrill out of the messy, slimy, gooey water mixture (what's the moss stuff called, carrageen?), and the way you inevitably get little spots of color all over yourself. I love the whole messy process. I will definitely be marbling in the future.

 

My other love is lokta paper. I think I may be crazy, but I just have to use it with my books! The more I can use it the better. It works great for end papers or covers, it has beautiful texture, and I love the way it feels.

So now I'm thinking this is a weird thing to post about, so I'm going to try and distract you from my weirdness by telling you that I posted the braided cords book in my Etsy shop. I'm also working on another book right now that I'll put up tomorrow.

And! We're moving. We really love the area and apartment we're in right now, but it's a little ways out from campus. We've been looking for somewhere closer for a while, just so we don't have so much of a commute. We found the place over the weekend, and if everything turns out alright, we'll be moving at the end of the month. Yay! I have a love hate relationship with moving. It's such a hassle, but I love reorganizing. Ahh! I'm turning into my mother! Anyways, I'd love to be able to buy a house and settle down, not move for a while. Sigh, one more year of school.

Braids (continued)

I finished the braided cord bound book! It turned out pretty nice, I think, and my husband even said "I like this one." High praise indeed.

 

The paper is from this atlas. I actually felt guilty tearing this page out. It hurt me more than it hurt the book, I think. After seeing the end result though, I don't feel so bad. It's an old atlas, some of the maps are no longer correct (Instead of Russia, it's the USSR, not to mention all the former soviet countries), and the data is outdated (populations and so forth). This atlas has lived a good life, and I think it makes great cover paper.

 

The endpapers are a lovely cloudy blue. I think they go well with the blue on the front and back covers.

Now I'm just debating whether to post it up in my shop, or to test it out some more to make sure the spine keeps the braided look. Le sigh.

Smells Like Team Spirit

So I've joined a team. This is a big step in my life. No more fear of commitment. No more being alone!

Just kidding, I'm still alone. And afraid to commit.

Just kidding again. But I really did join a team!  It's the EtsyU team. Members are college students who are also running shops on Etsy. The team blog is fun, it's basically a lot of "new member spotlights," but I love reading those kind of things.

I'm glad to have joined a team. It's also nice to know I'm not the only person on Etsy who is going to school and selling at the same time. If other people can do it, so can I!

...
I have the hardest time finishing posts. I never know how to close them off...

The End

Braids

So I thought I'd show a little of what I'm working on right now. I finished a book, but I hate it so much right now that I just can't take pictures. More on that when I stop having hateful feelings towards inanimate objects. So instead of pictures of that book, here is a picture of the one I'm currently working on.

 

As you can see, it's another cord bound book. I don't get angry at these ones like I do the case bound, so I like to make them a lot. Aren't those braids spiffy? I'm pretty sure I came up with this idea myself, but it was probably something I've seen and am only remembering subconsciously. I'm definitely an idea thief, sigh.

So you can see I only glued the leather down to the spine. It's still loose on the sides, and I plan to finish that today. See, normally when one works with gluing leather down, it can help if you have something to slow the drying process down, you add it to the glue. I think it starts with an "m". Whatever it is, I don't have it, so sometimes I do these books one side at a time. Most of the time I can whip it out and be quick about it, but sometimes it's nice to take it slow so I can really work out the definitions of the cords on the spine and whatnot. All in all, this book looks like it will turn out well. More pictures when I finish it.

Destruction Cometh...

I found another coat to destroy! This one is a beautiful navy blue and is another nearly perfect find. It has (had- mwahaha!) one small nick on the front, and smelled of old lady soap, which I found kind of strange and irritating. The smell is gone now, and so is the coat. In it's place, I have several large panels of beautiful leather. I've already made a couple of books with it, and I'm super excited because I have grand plans for another. It was actually a pretty huge coat, lengthwise. It went well past my knees, and the sleeves were roomy. It's all very exciting to find this much leather for so cheap! I'm a scrooge, so basically I don't like to spend more than $10 dollars on a thrifted item unless its furniture. Here are some pics of the coat and the books I made with it!

Pretty beasty coat, eh?! Another cool thing I forgot is the little purse that's sewn into the right pocket. You can see the little clasp in the picture.

 

This is my air mail book. I was really (super dooper) happy with the way this book turned out, and I love this paper. This one sold pretty quick, actually. The end papers are bright red, the same as I used on the next book.

 

Here is the castle book. I used the same blue leather and red end papers, and a cute castle print paper. I think this is a really cute book, and very well put together. I seem to be getting a lot better at making the bindings on my books the right degree of tightness. Too loose and they feel flimsy, too tight and they're borderline impossible to open. I've done both, and I'm happy to have found this happy medium.

That's all for today! Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a couple of books to post about.

I'm a Lame Face: Setting Goals to Remedy Woeful Lameness

So I haven't posted in a while. Lame. I've had a lazy couple of weeks. Double lame. I added a couple of books to the shop, which is always fun, and I'm in the process of making a few right now. I'm basically trying to figure out how to redeem myself from my own lameness. To start with, I updated my profile and policies pages, so now I feel like I'm a little more clear on my page. Now I just have to make some more books and get my shop all filled up! More inventory!

I've actually made a goal (gasp!). I was laying in bed last night, thinking about how woefully lame I have been lately with regards to my shop. Eight books? Sigh. Anyways, I was thinking, how am I going to keep my shop running this coming school year if I can't keep up with it now? So essentially, the rest of this summer is devoted to making books. Lots and lots of them. So by the end of my summer (First day of classes, September 9th) I WILL have at least thirty books in my shop and I'll have at least twenty more stockpiled for updating when I'm busy and can't spend a few hours making books to fill in any spots that have opened up. This may end up being more like, forty in the shop, ten on hand, etc., but my goal is to make fifty books before I go back to school on September 9th. Whew! That's almost a book a day! Well, not quite. I have eighty-four days to make fifty books. Good luck to me... honestly, it shouldn't be too difficult to make that number of books in that time frame, but I DON'T want to get burned out from making books. That would be so sad.

10 Books

 

Great news! I now have 10 books on my Etsy! Whoo! Actually, there's this part of me that says, "that's so lame, you should have 50 by now!" and then I find myself agreeing. It really is a lame milestone. I've been pretty slow about getting books made and posted. I do have 8 more books in the works though!

Anyways, here are some pictures of the two books I posted yesterday. The first is a longstitch book. I used recycled brown leather and some of the pink fabric from the pretty in pink book. I think it turned out great.

 

Had fun braiding the wrap around tie.

 

The next one is another cord bound book. This one also turned out great, and would be a good idea for a Father's day gift.

In honor of my 10 book milestone, I thought it would be fun to list 10 of my favorite books, in no particular order.

1. The Twelve Days of Christmas, Illustrated by Sheilah Beckett
2. Cinderella, Illustrated by K.Y. Craft
3. Rose Daughter, by Robin McKinley (heck, insert any book by Robin McKinley here, and it'll work)
4. The Host, by Stephenie Meyer
5. The Wheel of Time Series, by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (o.k., o.k., I know it's not one book, but you can't really read one without the others, can you?)
6. The Fablehaven Series, by Brandon Mull (ditto)
7. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
8. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen (question: is there anyone out there who has read this book and not liked it?)
9. Harry Potter, by J.K. Rowling (and again, with the series)
10. Ferdinand the bull, by Munro Leaf, illustrated by Robert Lawson

Well, I guess that's it for today. Be sure to stop by my shop to take a look at my newest additions! There will be more coming soon! 

How to Destroy your Iron

It's called heat n' bond. No, I didn't ruin my iron, but I came close. A couple of days ago I tore down 20 sheets of Mohawk superfine and assembled it into text blocks. Of course, there was some leftover paper (a lot of it), so I made that into a couple of text blocks as well. I haven't done a longstitch book in a while, so I decided that would be fun. This morning I whipped out my iron so I could line a piece of leather with some of that pink fabric that I used for the pretty in pink book. This isn't very thick fabric. As I was bonding the fabric to the piece of leather I was using, I noticed it was becoming harder and harder to push the iron around. I took a peek, and was shocked to find that the heat n' bond had melted partially through the fabric and was making its way onto my iron! Gasp! Thankfully, the damage was minimal, and I was able to continue after I located my new ironing friend, teflon paper. I got it from the local screen printer the other day. It's pretty much awesome. Anyways...

I now have two books that are ready to take pictures of and post on my Etsy. I just have to wait for a day that isn't quite as gray as it is today so I can take some (good) pictures.

Boom shaka laka laka

Yay! I got another book posted on my Etsy. This one is a pretty black and red number with some black and white floral paisley lokta paper (that I LOVE). The end papers are black lokta.

 

You can actually write or draw right down to the margins of this book.

 

 

On the back cover you can see there's was a little issue between the glue and the paper (in the upper right). I don't know what happened, but you can see the book board through the clear spot of glue. It's all rather upsetting. Between that and the fact that somehow I let this book only have seven signatures (112 pages total!), which is way too small, I'm selling this book for $20.00. It's a great starter journal though, or a good journal for someone who only writes sporadically. And I really love black and red together. I've seen some really pretty weddings with this color scheme.

FINALLY!

Well, it only took me forever, but I got a couple more books up on my Etsy. I have one more I need to post up, but the pictures really aren't working out for it, so it's kind of frustrating. It's been nothing but clouds for the last week, so it's been hard to take good pictures of the books that don't turn out really dark. I also renewed my crocodile rock and butterscotch plaid books, because I'm sure they were absolutely buried by now. I took a few more pictures of the crocodile rock book because the ones I had were atrocious, and I think the new ones are a little better. I only replaced a couple for now.

Here's my most recent cord bound book. I covered this one with some more of the Map of France paper, and it's lined with greel lokta paper. I think this book would work for a Father's day gift. I tried something new with this one and covered the corners with leather. I think it adds a nice touch, and it will hopefully help protect the corners of the book as well.

Unfortunately, as I was putting the leather onto the spine, a couple of places started to look worn out. In my folly, I tried to make it look better, and I'm sure you know how that went. So now the spine has a couple of spots that show wear. Poo.

The other book I posted today is one I've had some struggles with. I actually started it a few weeks ago, but stopped because I messed it up badly. I was trying to attach a closure, but first I sewed it onto the wrong spot, then I got it onto the right spot and figured out it was not going to work at all. So then I tried to make a button closure, but that wasn't working either. So basically there are a few holes decorating the front cover. It looks like a vampire attached itself in a few places trying to find a good spot. Finally I made a tie closure, and it works great. I feel so stupid.

 

 You can see the puncture wounds in the last picture. They're not very visible on the outside of the book, but on the inside they show up pretty well. I'll make another post once I get the third book up on Etsy.

Atlas Love

 

This is my amazing new atlas. As you can see in the picture, I am extremely happy it finally came (finally? it only took like 4 days... I guess I'm a really impatient person). It's so beautiful, and almost as big as my torso. I'm so very excited to have it. It really is a shame that I bought it for the purpose of destroying it. I'm starting to feel guilty.

I picked up my paper yesterday. This paper is meant for cutting up, so I've been focusing on that and avoiding the atlas for the time being. I got some pretty papers from Paper Source and Paper Mojo, which are both pretty awesome paper suppliers. I bought a piece of black lokta paper from Paper Source because sometimes the colors I have just won't do, and I'm actually not very happy with it. I'm not sure where the Lokta paper I'm used to comes from, but this piece I bought just isn't what I was expecting. Sad day. I guess I know now. It will do the job, I just wish it was prettier, and better quality.

The paper I ordered from Hollanders hasn't come yet, which is also sad. I think it was late the last time we ordered it as well. I mainly ordered some of the Florentine prints from there because I've had a fascination with cord bound books lately, and they seem to look best if you stick to a more old fashioned look, as opposed to going more contemporary. Of course, if I had some different colors of leather to work with that might change as well. Right now I'm working with black and brown, which lend to the classic look of the book as a whole. I think I prefer it that way.

Well, I had better get back to work. I can't believe it's taken me so long to get another book up on my Etsy! The weather has been completely cloudy for about a week, so it's been hard to take decent pictures as well, since I'm using the natural light that comes through our living room window. Okay, I'm off to cover some more books. Toodlepip.

Waiting (im)patiently

I am waiting for my paper to arrive. Actually, it's here, I'm just not allowed to touch it until June 1 (next Tuesday) because I ordered it through the book arts class at school. Sis. Simpson wasn't in today evidently, but the paper was. I have to wait for her to talk to this semester's class about it before I can get into it. It's probably a good thing though, because if I were to simply open it up and put it in the paper drawer or something, people would probably take paper that wasn't what they ordered, and all that jazz. It would be a disaster, especially since I know how mad I would be if I went and my paper that I need for a book was GONE. So I'm waiting.


I haven't just been twiddling my thumbs though. I have been doing evil things. Firstly, I bought a beautiful leather coat. It was gorgeous ("was?" you ask,) and probably only worn once, if that. I'm serious, this coat was pristine, soft leather, no scuffs or wear on cuffs, elbows, collar, or anything. It was $8. I tried it on, and it doesn't fit me quite right. Too big in the shoulders. After trying it on, I picked it completely apart. I now have a decent amount of beautiful brown leather. It's nice and stretchy, so it's perfect for cord bound books. Mwahaha!!!

See the beautiful pile of leather that coat has become? And that's not all of it either! I got a nice zipper off of it too!

Secondly, I bought a beautiful 1957 atlas on Etsy. It's pretty big, 11 x 14 inches or something like that. I'm especially excited about this atlas for a couple of reasons. I've had this book marked as a favorite for a couple of weeks. I was debating whether or not I should get it because I didn't need it super bad at the time, and we're trying to be careful with our money right now. So I thought, about it for a while, and then went back to it the other night. I spent about 15, 20 minutes thinking about it and looking for a better deal. Then I decided to go ahead and get it. The magical thing is, somewhere in the 15 minutes or so I spent looking around, the seller lowered the price! Whoo! I was pretty stoked about that, so ya, I'm waiting for it to arrive. The funny thing is (well, I don' know it it's funny or if it's just sick), I have every intent on destroying this book just like I destroyed the leather coat. I plan on using the pages for covers/ end papers in my books. I'm pretty sure it's going to be stellar.

So in my spare time (when I haven't been destroying perfectly good clothing or plotting to destroy beautiful vintage books), I've been tearing down paper and making text blocks. Right now I have six books pending completion. If only my atlas would come.
Le sigh.

It's not like I don't have enough paper though (for covers). I have a ton, it's just not what I need right now.

P.S. I marbled these papers myself. I love marbling paper.

Alchemy!

 The blue end papers are not this blue in person.

The blue flowers outlined with yellow don't look as clean/sharp as the others for some reason.

 

Here's some of the work that went into warming up my foil pressing skills, trying out another method of transferring the graphic, etc.

 This is the alternative transfer method I mentioned above. It's called photocopy transfer. I wasn't sure how well it would work, but I had extra fabric, so I thought I would try it out, for experimentation's sake. As you can see, it isn't the clearest method of transfer, but it's nice to know it works like this.

I cut out a couple of the best practice pieces to test out placement.

 Fun :)