Book of Mystery and Intrigue

This is the book I mentioned in my last post. I found some green lokta paper that I forgot I had, and was able to finish it up nicely. The leather is recycled from a lovely coat I got at DI, and the paper is some I marbled myself in Book Arts. I really like this book and this technique. It has great finished results. Every time. I'm actually about to start another one, but I wish I had some different leathers. Colors, that is. I have some that has some kind of faux leather print on it and I'm not sure how it would work. Maybe I'll try it just for kicks and giggles.

This book is reversible! Yeehaw! There is no up or down, so if you want one side or the other to be the front, you can. Cool, I say.

P.S. I LOVE marbled paper. So. Much. (\____________(^.^)____________/) This much, actually.

Pretty in Pink

Here's my latest book. It is bound with the case binding technique, which is fun, and is made with some of my favorite homemade book cloth. I found the material for this book cloth at DI about a week ago (I celebrated school being out for the semester by buying myself some DI fabric and a cute outfit... and a couple of pairs of shoes... and a leather scrap coat... ok, ok, and a book, all for under $30! I love thrifting), and just made it last night, which was so fun. Anyways, I have a couple of other fabrics that I think would look lovely with this fabric, I just have yet to figure out how to put them all together.

Anyways, I had fun making this book. I tried out a new way to glue the tapes down on the inside of the covers. I started by figuring out where they would go, traced around them, then cut out a few layers of the book board, just like I would if I was embossing. Then, I glued the tapes into their designated spaces, and voila! They didn't show up after I put the end paper on! I'm happy I finally tried this out after Sister Simpson suggested it a while back. Especially since the tapes I'm using are really thick, and would look awkward under the end papers. I think this method makes the book look a little more professional.

I listed this item in my shop hoping it will make a good choice for a Mother's day gift. I dunno. It's pretty, and I think it would be a sweet idea. Too bad I have no idea what to do for my mom. It was simple when I was living at home. Me and the sibs would go pick some springy flowers and make her a very classy breakfast in bed (even taking her order! haha). But now I'm not at home. I wasn't last year either. No idea what to do.

Well, my next project I'm working on is a cord bound book that I'm going to use some of my hand marbled paper and upcycled leather for. I tore apart a perfectly good coat from DI for the leather. I am a villain. More on my villainous ways next time.

Butterscotch

This is a traditional style coptic stitch book I made yesterday. I'm especially excited about this one because it is covered with some of my very own homemade book cloth! Yay! It's actually the same stuff that you can see me make in my video tutorial, here.

I love all the beautiful colors that are in this fabric. It has every color of the rainbow except for green. That was nice, because it left a lot of options open for end paper. I decided on a beautiful butterscotch colored lokta paper, which is almost the same color as the thread. I think it goes nicely with the plaid fabric.

I did switch it up a little with this one by alternating how far onto the book board the stitches go. You can see it in the next picture. Overall, this was a fun book to make, and it was a lot quicker to do normal style. Coming up with variation patterns is hard for me. It takes a while to decide what will look best, and then there's the whole process of poking holes in each signature without the help of a universal template. Grr.

Crocodile Rock!

Here is a book I've been planning to do for a while. I had covered some book board a while back with then intent of doing another crazy coptic stitch. The paper was the inspiration. How could I use this paper and not do something slightly crazy with the book?

Like any good coptic book should, this one lies open flat easily, but unlike my other coptic book, it doesn't try to fly open. The inside paper on the covers is a beautiful dark chocolate lokta paper, and the thread is brown as well. I love the feeling of lokta paper.

The paper I used to cover the boards on the outside is recycled paper screen printed in Zimbabwe. I love the print, but I found the paper to be a little difficult to work with. It was a little thinner than I was expecting, so it wrinkled and bubbled easily when I glued it down to the book board. I managed, and I'm sure I'll do better next time I use it, but it caught me off guard the first time.

Etsy Baby!

So, I finally started an Etsy. If you don't know what Etsy is, you are missing out, my friend. It is the coolest place to go and buy and sell things that are handmade and vintage (or supplies). Don't just try to imagine it though -- go and see for yourself. Here.

That said, I've been wanting to get one up since January-ish. My dilemma has been choosing a user name.
 "Really Laurel? Really?" You say, "It's just a user name, it's not that important."
 "But it is!" I protest vehemently. I didn't want something boring like 'laurelhoffman' or 'lhoffman' etc., but I couldn't come up with anything truly memorable. Really, I have a page in my sketch book full of crossed out etsy user names. The thing is, if it was just my user name, I'd be fine with lhoffman or whatever, but I wanted to sell on etsy, and when you sell, your user name becomes your shop name. So lhoffman wasn't cutting it. So I deliberated, and asked my husband (who didn't really care too deeply about the subject), paced the floor, and nothing came.

Finally the semester ended, and I knew I had to come up with a name, because I had decided I was going to get my shop running this summer. A week later, nothing (isn't this story great? If you've made it this far you need to find a hobby, you are way to easily entertained). Then, TADA! As I was posting pics of my books and such on this blog, the idea hit me! Why don't I just name it after my blog?! Admittedly, the blog name was rather random, but I haven't regretted it yet, so it seemed like a good idea. So my Etsy user name is badplatypus. Oh yeah. I figured, it's a bit strange, and has no real correlation to what I would be selling, but I feel like it isn't something like 'lhoffman' that you'll forget it two seconds.

And that, my child, is the tale of Laurel's long and tedious quest to find a stellar Etsy username. Unfortunately, it isn't over. I would have items posted on my page if it weren't for the fact that the bank canceled our debit card while they were sending me a new one. Grr, that's another story.

Literary Masterpieces

Here are a couple of "vases" I made for my independent project for my sculpture class. While they may look like vases at the moment, they certainly are not made to hold water.

The first vase you see was made out of an old magazine. It wasn't hard to make, but it did take a little bit of my time. If you want to know how to make one, try this link.

This next one was made from books I purchased at Deseret Industries, a thrift store here in town. Now normally I would feel really bad destroying perfectly good books, but I felt a little better after I read a couple of articles about how it's hard to recycle books because of the glue in the spine, so any books that aren't bought at thrift stores are just thrown away. So really, I'm making something fun and decorative out of what would just end up being trash. And they were reader's digest condensed books.

This project took a lot more time and muscle than the last one. I cut two readers digest condensed books by hand with a scalpel. My shoulders hurt for a while, and I started to wonder if a band saw might work better. I'm still not sure if it would work or if it would just rip the book to shreds, but it might be good to know for future reference.

This can be done using only one book, but I used two so it would be fuller, and so I could put a test tube in the center for water holding purposes. I have yet to obtain a test tube. Here is a tutorial I used for my guide. Don't be fooled though, I did not find this project to be quick or easy like it said.

Alice and Wonderland

For my Book arts class we did a collaborative book at the end of the semester. We decided as a class it would be fun for each of us to make a page for one of the characters from the books. I chose the Jabberwocky (and I'm still confused as to whether it is a jabberwock or a jabberwocky), even though it really isn't a character, it's just mentioned in a poem. Whatever though.

We were supposed to do a box and a book for this assignment (speaking of which, I should post a picture of my box of books), but since I did a book with a fore edge spine, not to mention the decorative elements, My professor was fine without a box. Whew!

I did more of the cut out book board technique for the card suits on the front cover, and then when they were all covered and whatnot, I gold leafed them! The problem with gold leaf is the glue. You're supposed to wait 30 minutes to an hour for it to get tacky before you put the leaf down, but I only waited 20, and was therefore required to re-leaf a couple of places. I guess it isn't the glue's fault, it's mine. Meh. I also put magnets under the paper and book cloth so the book would maintain it's composure. Terrible book, always flopping about where it shouldn't be. hmph. I tried to put the card suits in order, but I wasn't sure what order that was... let me know if I'm wrong.

Wedding Card book

This is my latest and greatest book. I saw the coolest idea on a blog a while back (this isn't the one, but I couldn't find it again, and you get the idea), and I'm just now putting it to use. See, I've had these wonderful wedding cards sitting in a bag (in a box) in the storage room for a while, and I was looking through them thinking, "gee, it sure is hard to throw something like this away! It's a wedding memento! I'll only have wedding cards once in my life!" and some of these cards are lovely. So that made me think of something we'd talked about in my Business for the Professional Artist class. The idea is, when you send out a promotional piece, make it really special. Make it so groovy that people will have a hard time throwing it away. So, I took my already awesome wedding cards and I made them doubly awesome by binding them into a book! Tada!

I know, I'm awesome. Keep in mind though, this wasn't originally my idea, I just expounded on it (is that even the right word?). I started off by separating my cards into stacks of similar sizes. There are ginormous ones, medium size ones, and eetsy beetsy ones. I started with the medium sized ones. I decided to bind them in a case bound form. 

It was more difficult to bind cards than I had anticipated. first off, each card was it's own  signature, so for this book I think I have like 15 or 18 signatures, which takes a lot of thread and a long time to sew. It's not difficult, per say, except for the fact that when the factory (or whoever makes and folds all these cards) folds the cards, some of them are sliced or scored so they will bend easier. It's nice, they stay shut, which is the purpose, but it is therefore  very easy to pull the thread too hard and rip right through the spine of the card. Grrr! I must have done that like twenty times! Other than that, it was fine.

For the cover (I think this was a jolt of brilliant inspiration) I made my own paper by gluing bits and pieces of the envelopes that the cards came in to a piece of tissue paper, and then gluing it down to my book board. I used tissue paper 1. Because it was what I had at the moment, 2. Because the envelopes were thick enough as it was, I didn't need them layered on top of some thick paper, and 3. Because I could rearrange and then trim the paper before I glued it down. Some of the pieces of the envelopes that I used were stamps, the post office stamps (like the ones that say, Spokane, WA) because I thought it was cool all the places we got letters from, and some of the pieces that said our names on them. Mr. and Mrs. Hoffman, Laurel Hoffman, etc.

The color book cloth I used was not one of my wedding colors, which would have been cool, I just thought it went really well with the envelopes and stamps. On the spine I carved a heart in the book board and then pressed it down in with my bone folder. It was my first try at doing that sort of thing, and I think it went well.

So, I think I've talked enough. Here are some pics of the book, and if anyone wants me to do this for them, let me know, we'll work something out (monetary compensation, cheesecake for a couple of weeks, something along those lines :) ).

Make Your Own Bookcloth, yo.

Here's my groovylicious video I did for Art Business. It's about making bookcloth, which is kind of fun. Enjoy!