Something Odd

Rats, I have broken my resolution already - which was to post on my blog at least once per week. I will try to make up for it at some point! I made an odd little accordion book from a feather mask - this is part of a February challenge with the Trans Canada Etsy Team - the theme being "something odd". Visit the TCET blog and vote for your favorite odd item!

12 Days of Christmas - Nov 22 to Dec 3

Until December 3rd, I am participating in the 12 Days of Christmas event in conjunction with the Trans Canada Etsy Street team! This means, that all purchases from my shop during these 12 days, will earn ballots into a draw for a really fabulous prize! I am also offering Free Shipping on almost everything! The ballots will earn you a chance to win a prize package of handmade goodies from TCET members and you can see the list of participating Etsy shops and the prizes by visiting our team blog. You can get one ballot without making a purchase if you share your letter to Santa. Visit the team blog each day for fun holiday stories, recipes, pictures and more about each of the team members, as we count down the 12 Days of Christmas together.

Autumn Leaves

This is my Autumn Leaves / Autumn Memories journal that I made for the current TCET Challenge! That's a photo of my kid a couple years ago, buried in a pile of fallen leaves. Drop by the TCET blog to vote for your favorite handmade item. Also, if you have an idea that you think our team should use for our next challenge, leave a comment and we might pick your idea! Go here to vote: transcanadaetsyteam.blogspot.com

Snow Storm Hardcover Journal

I made this journal a couple days ago for the Trans Canada Etsy Team's February Challenge. The theme of the challenge is Snow since we still have lots of it around the country, even if it was scarce for a few days in Whistler! Visit the TCET blog to vote for your favorite item in our snow-inspired challenge (hint: pick "D"!) This journal has a white leather spine and the covers are finished with beautiful Japanese Chiyogami paper that has fine gold and silver bursts that remind me of whirling snow during a blizzard. There are 256 pages of gorgeous snow white cotton paper with torn edges.

Books by PrairiePeasant

Laura, known online as PrairiePeasant, is a bookbinder in Winnipeg, Manitoba. We have met through our memberships in both the Etsy Bookbinding Team as well as the Trans Canada Etsy Team. Much of Laura's work involves using eco-friendly materials to produce eco-friendly journals. Laura told me, "I love the challenge of finding usable materials at thrift shops and garage sales and I love using old maps and unloved books in my work." This unique journal is part of her Anatomy Series: The covers are reclaimed book board and the images on the covers are pages from a vintage medical textbook. From her Rebound series, using the covers and some pages of a discarded reader, she transforms an unloved book into new, cheery, and colourful journal: Laura also has a second Etsy shop called PrairieThreads where she has her eco-friendly fibre arts, like these awesome little knitted stockings, made using 100% salvaged yarns, recycled from previous projects and treasures found in thrift shops. You can check out more of Laura's work by visiting her Etsy shops (just click on the images above and there's still time for Christmas shopping, espcially if you're ordering within Canada!). I also highly recommned Laura's blog at PrairiePeasant.blogspot.com. She documents so many of her creative projects, including bookbinding, calligraphy, quilting, knitting, and many other things she is doing!

12 Days of Christmas Giveaway

Be sure to check out the 12 Days of Christmas promotion that the Trans Canada Etsy Team is having right now. For the next 12 days, you can get your name into a draw for this rather fabulous prize - consisting of handmade goodies from 22 different artisans across Canada. During these 12 days, each shop will be featured on the TCET blog sharing favorite Christmas memories, recipes, and traditions so you can get to know us all a little better. Ballots for the prize are earned by shopping in the participating Etsy stores, and you can get one free ballot by writing your letter to Santa and telling him about three particular items you would like to have from the participating shops. Check out the details, find the list of participating shops, and leave your letter to Santa here: transcanadaetsyteam.blogspot.com

BEST Zombie Award 2009

Thank you to everyone who has been following these Halloween Challenges and casting votes for my books! The Bookbinding Etsy Street Team actually had a tie for the award this year. The two winning books were my tunnel book, Trapped Inside a Haunted House, and Sara Hindmarch's book, Vampire Diary, so congratulations to us! Sara is defending her title since she won the award last year, way to go! Check out the full results on the team's blog. The Trans Canada Etsy Team's Halloween Challege ended yesterday too. The winner was a Haunted Tree Pendant by MyBelleBijoux. I voted for her pendant too, it is really great! So my MacBeth journal was the runner up (again... I was the runner up last time too!).

Halloween Challenges - I need your votes!

This week, my halloween books are looking for votes! The Bookbinding Etsy Street Team is having its second halloween challenge for the BEST Zombie Award. I made this tunnel book for the challenge: Trapped Inside a Haunted House. You can vote for this book (or whichever book you like most) over at the BEST Blog. AND - the Trans Canada Etsy Street Team is also having a Halloween challenge this week! Same idea, except that this team consists of a wide range of artisans and crafters, not just book artists. So the collection of halloween items is wonderfully wide-ranging! For this challenge, I submitted my Macbeth journal which has the witches' chant on the back cover, printed onto some of my handmarbled paper - and an illustration from an old storybook on the front cover. So now hop on over to the Trans Canada blog to vote for this book (or whichever item you like best, of course!) If you leave comments on either of those blogs, there are little surprises to be won by some random commenters, so be sure to leave a comment in both places! Happy Halloween...

Celebrating Autumn Journal

The Trans Canada Etsy Team issued an Autumn Challenge a while ago, and now all the entires are online for voting! So go over to the team blog (transcanadaetsyteam.blogspot.com) and vote for #11! or #13! er, I mean, go vote for your favorite! This is my Autumn journal (#11 when you vote!) I cut a circle out of the front cover to create an enclosed window. The back of the window is lined with a piece of real birch bark, and then a small red maple leaf was placed inside before I sealed it over with a plastic transparency sheet. The birch bark is from that tree in the campground where I camped this past summer and there were big pieces of bark peeling off so I brought a bit home with me. The little red maple leaf, I picked last Fall from a tree near my house and pressed in a big book all year. The marbled paper on the covers is some that I hand marbled myself. There is also some handmade paper that I made, as the paste-down on the inside of each cover. My other submission for this challenge is this sheet of marbled paper - #13 when you vote!! Vote here: transcanadaetsyteam.blogspot.com And if you also leave a comment over there after you vote, there is a little giveaway for some lucky commenter (not here, over at the TCET blog)

Happy Canada Day

July 1st is Canada Day! Canada is 142 years old, so have a drink for Canada. And... is there any better way to celebrate a country and its heritage and its achievements, then by having a sale? A sale especially for Canadians? Great idea!

I'm offering 1 cent shipping to all locations in Canada from MyHandboundBooks and MyMarbledPapers. So, just 1 penny for shipping until midnight July 1st (or whenever I get home from the fireworks and celebration, whichever is later)!

Trans-Canada road trip & some really awesome giveaways

I am a member of the Etsy street team, called the "Trans Canada Etsy Team" and we are a group of artisans, spread across Canada, who all sell our work on Etsy. We work as a group to help promote each other, for example, we have collaborative advertising efforts and cross-promotions by including other team members' business cards in packages mailed to our customers. Socially we have done things such as secret Santa gifts during the holidays and we may do trades or supply swapping as well. It is a very supportive group and the active members see many benefits. I mention this, because, as you can see from that badge on the side of my blog, there is a "Trans Canada Road Trip" happening right now, which is a collaborative promotion that our team has put together. There are over 20 Etsy shops participating, including mine. All the shops are giving out ballots into a draw for two really amazing prizes. The promotion runs until July 1st, so this is our way of celebrating Canada Day! First of all, there is a gorgeous handwoven rag rug to be won. Who wouldn't want to win this?? (This rug is valued at $240.) To make it even more special, each of the participating members provided the raw materials to make it! It is made from t-shirts! All our participating members sent t-shirts to Fiveforty and she used the t-shirts to create this rug. It is stunning, and it is big, measuring 34"x55"! Also to be won, is a Grand Prize package containing handmade items from all the participating shops. This package of goodies is valued at over $350! And we are just giving it away!! So by now you must be wondering how you can get your name into the draw for this stuff?? It's pretty simple. Go visit the participating shops. And for every $10 you spend in those shops, you'll get a ballot into the draw. So, that's one ballot for any purchase that is $10 or less. But then additional ballots if you spend more. And when you make your purchase, if you mention the promo code "Road Trip" in your message to the seller, we will give you an extra ballot! It's never too soon to start your holiday shopping... especially if it gives you a chance to win one of those totally amazing prizes. Of course there are also lots of things in these shops that you might want to buy for yourself anyway... soap? We all need soap. How about some cranberry jelly, mmmmm. Reuseable food storage bags? They are better than plastic. Baby gifts? There will always be more babies who need stuff. Maybe you like to have a few birthday cards on hand? Maybe you need a leather journal?! Have fun shopping. And check out the full contest details on the TCET blog. Also on the team blog we are introducing our members from East coast to West coast as we make our virtual road trip across the country. Yesterday we visited a couple of places in Nova Scotia, and today we got as far as Moncton, New Brunswick. We'll keep going until we reach Vancouver on July 1st.

A week in review

I have the great honour of being the first featured in a series of Shop Local articles being reported by the Trans Canada Etsy Team and published on the team's blog. Brandi, known on Etsy as Enthral (and a fellow Nova Scotian), put this together and did a wonderful job of tying together my work and my locale, thank you Brandi! This week I have been able to finish a group of recycled journals which have all my scrap papers for the pages, and the covers are mostly leather scraps as well, pieces that were discarded previously for various reasons. These three stab bindings came next (which could also be considered recycled since the pages were cut offs from larger projects, and the back covers are scraps of mat board). Simple 4-hole yotsume toji notebooks in teal, grey, and chartreuse.

Virtual Trunk Show - Trans Canada Etsy Team

Everyone is invited to the TCET first Virtual Trunk Show! This is part of the "Around the World" Trunk Show that is being hosted by Etsy. Teams from different regions around the globe will be participating. Thursday, Nov 13th, at 10:00pm Eastern in the Etsy Virtual Lab. These team members will be presenting their work:

• MyHandboundBooks
• Enthral
• RikRak
• DesignbyRJ
• PaisleyBaby
• PinkfireDesigns
• iHeartThatDance
• StringmeAlong
• Intuibead
• TanisAlexis

Try to win a book and all this other stuff!

I have included a small Coptic-bound journal as part of the prize pack for the Trans Canada Etsy Team treasure hunt. The full prize pack is shown here - lots of goodies! And all are handmade from Canadian Etsy sellers.

To get a chance to win this whole package, just visit the TCET blog and check out the list of questions listed there. Find the answers to 10 of those questions (all the answers can be found by visiting the list of participating shops shown there) and then submit your answers to the contest coordinator, by sending her a message through her Etsy shop, PiggyTailsStationary.

So just hop over to the TCET blog and all the instructions and questions are available there for you! Have fun treasure hunting!

Happy Earth Day

The Trans Canada Etsy Team has done a series of articles on their blog to feature individual eco-conscious Etsy sellers in recognition of Earth Day. All are fabulous Canadian artists and crafters and I'm honoured to be included here with them. You can read the individual articles here:

• Minouette
• MyHandboundBooks
• Colleen Baran
• FiveForty
• RikRak
• TanisAlexis

Thank you Morgen, for preparing these articles. Morgen is also very eco-conscious and has two Etsy shops: InkySpider and KootSac.

TCET Sale

The Trans Canada Etsy Team is having a Pre-Spring Cleaning Sale for one week only, February 18th to 24th. In my own shop, I am offering a 20% discount on selected items. A full list of participating shops is available on the TCET blog:
http://transcanadaetsyteam.blogspot.com