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.

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.