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.

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

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! 

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.

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 :)

Scrapbook... no, wait...

This is my "Scrap" book. See, I got these lovely fabrics at the Deseret Industries a while back, and I've been thinking for a while how lovely they look together. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think they're a great combo. So I've been trying to think of a beautiful way to use them all together, and couldn't think of anything. Except this, and I'm not sure it if counts as beautiful.

You may recognize the pink fabric from my Mother's day book. All of the fabric for this book was made into book cloth by me. I especially love the beige fabric (the lowest part of the book in the first picture), because it reminds me of 80's prom dresses that you find at thrift stores. You know, the silk moire that looks like wood grain? It's classic. I actually picked up a couple more colors the other day (yeehaw!).

You can see in the picture below that some of the pages are different sizes. It gives the book a more handmade feel, and gives me an opportunity to give all those poor lost scraps of paper a home. They are all very similar in size, and it doesn't harm the strength of the book (or the aesthetic, for that matter).

 I'm happy with the result. The thread is a nice minty green that goes rather smashingly with the blue floral print. On the inside covers I used some rescued dusty pink lokta paper. I can't believe what some people will try to throw away. And at the same time, I can't believe some of the stuff I try to keep, haha sigh.

Check the book out on my Etsy site.

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.

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.