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.