Recycled Books with a slip case and more stuff

I've been having fun using cardboard from our grocery items for books.



These are quite small. The notebooks are just 4½" x 2¾" (11cm x 7cm). Then I deconstructed the All Bran Cereal Bar box, and refolded it to make it fit the two notebooks. We seem to have a lot of Kellogs products in our pantry.


Also, by the way, I've been interviewed on the Bookbinding Etsy Street Team blog. Hop over to EtsyBooks.blogspot.com if you want to read more about me and books.


And thank you, Carol, for the "Arte y pico" blog award! This is the deal:

1) You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for, creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributing to the blogger community, no matter what language.
2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3) Each award-winner, has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4) Award-winners and the one who has given the prize should to show the link to the Arte y pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.
5) To show these rules.

I'm passing on the award to the following bloggers and their blogs:
Billie, Billie's Craft Room
Kiley, Kiley's Handmade Books
Andee, All Things Dandee
Maiko, Flurrsprite's Nook
Ali, Charlie and Grace

Special Edition CD

Cephalectomy is a Nova Scotia band and they recently released a new CD, The Dream Cycle Mythos. I have designed and constructed this special edition for them: a drop-back box in full black sheepskin leather. This special numbered edition is available through the band's label, Discorporate Music.


I hand printed their logo on the cover and on the insert, using a lino cut that I created for this project.



The insert is a folded wrapper structure with a tab closure and it contains the graphics and lyrics as well as a certificate of authenticity.


If you're wondering what kind of music is inside this box, Cephalectomy's new release is described thus: "The Dream Cycle Mythos" shatters dreams and brims with an originality that is sorely absent from other releases in the death/grind genre. No stones are left unturned on this musical masterpiece -- it is a single song that stretches beyond the 23-minute mark. Thunderous blast beats transition to extreme melody, off-time riffs, heavy metal crunch, and even sprinklings of classic rock. However, metal is the name of the game here with Cephalectomy's fourth official release for Discorporate Music. The lyrics spin a tale of a clearly unstable mind as it experiences new dimensions and the horrifying visions within.

500 Handmade Books

Ah, look what came in the mail yesterday! So I've been a little preoccupied with this. It is fun to see so many familiar contributors - people I met at PBI, instructors I've had, binders I've met online, and book artists that I've admired for a long time. If you are wondering about it, yes, this book is definitely worth having.

Face on the spine

I saw a book done like this when I was at PBI in May. It had the face of Marilyn Munroe on the spine and I thought it was just absolutely fabulous, and sorry I can't remember who had made it. EDIT: Recently I was looking through some photos from my PBI trip and it suddenly became very clear to me who made that Marilyn Munroe book. It was Roberta Lavadour (I'm 99% sure).

The face on my book here is from a sketchbook cover and I had accumulated quite a stack, 20 or 30 of these images, so I had lots to work with.




So by carefully wrapping the same image around each section, just moving it slightly each time, I was able to get the face onto the spine. Then I just added the rest of his head on the front cover. All the materials in the book are either repurposed or 100% recycled; it's bound with four rows of chain stitches.

Busy and photos to prove it

The free shipping offer worked out well in my Etsy shop - where I sold about 25 books throughout the sale! That creates a lot of packing and shipping work, sheesh. Otherwise I recently had some orders to fill, so I haven't been able to make much new for my shop. But some happy customers got these orders on time.

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Independence Day too!

FREE SHIPPING on all orders from my Etsy shop July 1st to 5th! Because I'm celebrating Canada's birthday and want to share with anybody who likes my books. Visit my Etsy shop online, at MyHandboundbooks.Etsy.com and all the shipping fees have been removed for Canada and USA customers. The rest of the world gets half price shipping!

There is my kid, one year ago, celebrating Canada Day on a ferry ride in Halifax Harbour with his little paper flag.

And here are some nice red and whites in my shop, Happy Canada Day!