Book and paper arts with a 5-year-old

Occasionally, my little boy requests that we make things in my bookbinding studio, and he doesn't mean block towers or Lego towns. Last week he asked if we could make a book. We have made blank notebooks before, just using a basic pamphlet stitch (his first attempt was over two years ago). This time we found printable booklets online so his book would have real content. The layout of the pages made them perfect for a stab binding, so this time Nicholas made his first Japanese-bound book, called "What begins with N?". He wanted yet another project, so we made paint. Using a simple recipe that we found online, we made three pots of sticky paint. This is esentially paste made from cornstarch with some food colouring mixed in. The result was a very translucent paint mixture, and when the papers dried, they were very slick and smooth. Could be a great concoction for paste papers. Some book and paper arts resources, if you have a kid who likes to make things: - Make Paper with Kids - Origami for Kids - Printmaking with fruit & veggies - Preschool Indoor Fun - Make your own mini books - Cereal Box Bookbinding - Making Paper Airplanes

Marbling

This looks fun, eh? Recently I haven't had time to do anything very new or exciting in the world of bookbinding. I had two local craft markets which took up my time for a while; I also have a couple substantial orders to fill; and I just spent a couple days marbling. I had to make 30 marbled sheets that were all the same... or at least very similar, using the same colours and all with the same pattern... To make up for that, I spent the next day using as many colours and patterns as possible. Here are some examples - zooming in on the patterns:

Crafter's Market, May 8th

I'm going to be selling my journals at a spring craft market this Saturday!

Spring Crafter's Market!
Date: Saturday, May 8
Time: 10am to 6pm
Location: Halifax Forum's Multipurpose Centre, corner of Windsor and Young Streets.

There will be a fantastic variety of local art and craft sellers. So if you're in Halifax, come by the Halifax Forum's Multipurpose Centre on Saturday. This event is a fund raiser for Feed Nova Scotia so there is a small admission fee, or you can bring a non-perishable food donation in lieu of the admission fee.

This craft sale is perfect timing if you still need to find something for Mother's Day!

Six journals

When I was preparing for the local craft market that I mentioned previously, I prepared the signatures and the covers for these six journals. I had the covers made, pressed, dried, and the signatures were folded and pressed and I took them with me to the sale to work on if there was any downtime. I got only two of them bound while I was there, each are sewn with four rows of chain stitches, or the small-c-coptic sewings. Now I've finished the others and added the buttons and ribbons.

Celebrating Earth Day (wtih free stuff)!

April 22nd is Earth Day! In recognition of Earth Day, I am giving away free eco-friendly journals with any order from my Etsy or Artfire shops for the rest of this week (so, until midnight on Friday, April 23rd). Eco-friendly journals are ones that I have made entirely with materials that would have been otherwise destined for landfill. There are actually two ways you could win something from me: 1. Any purchase from MyHandboundBooks will receive a free eco-book automatically! 2. Leave a comment here telling me what you are doing to celebrate Earth Day. I'll randomly select one person's comment to win an eco-notebook too! (Make sure you leave your email address or link to contact information so that I can contact you if you win!) Edit April 24: This giveaway is closed. The winner! Congratulations to Pegg, the winner of my Earth Day giveaway! I had 15 comments to pick from, and I used random.org to generate a random number and it picked 10, and Pegg was lucky commenter number 10! Thank you to everyone who left comments here telling me about Earth Day activities, and thanks to those who made purchases this week; they got free eco-books too.

Halifax Crafter's Market - April 17 & 18

Attention local readers: the Halifax Crafters are having their Spring Fling Crafter's Market on April 17th and 18th!

I'll be there with my books, along with many many other very cool artisans.

Location:
Olympic Center, 2304 Hunter Street
(which is really the corner of Windsor and Cunard)

When:
Saturday & Sunday, April 17 & 18

Time:
11:00am to 6:00pm each day

Drop in and shop for your mother's day and father's day presents, graduation presents, gifts for new babies, early holiday shopping, whatever you need, it'll be there...

The Illustrated Accordion

During April, the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center is hosting an exhibit called "The Illustrated Accordion." They have also posted a virtual exhibit on Flickr so everyone can see the collection. For those of you in Michigan, maybe you can check it out in person at the KBAC Gallery. Included in "The Illustrated Accordion" is this little accordion book that I made last Fall. This is called "A Walk on the Beach" inspired by our family's trip to a beach that had an unexpected conclusion. The accordion is made with pockets to hold found objects: shell, feather, driftwood, etc. The first pocket includes a tiny book with a bit of text about the walk on the beach. Several months ago, I mentioned that I was participating in a miniature book exchange and this accordion book was initially designed for that purpose. For our exchange, we need to make an edition of 6 and we send one to each person. I was really happy with this book so I made an edition of 10; copies are available on Etsy.

It's that time of year again: Edible Books!

Once again, on April 1st, people all over the globe will be celebrating books by participating in Edible Book Festivals! If you have always wanted to be part of one of these events but do not have a local Edible Book festival to attend, you can be part of the BEST Virtual Edible Book Festival this year. All you have to do, is make your edible book(s), snap a few photos, and upload those photos to the BEST Edible Books Flickr group before 9pm (EDT) on April 1st. You can join the Flickr group and upload your photos here: www.flickr.com/groups/best-edibles-2010 You can read all the details about the event on the BEST blog. Photos will also be posted to the BEST blog and a small panel of judges will pick their favorites!

Marbled Papers

A few more examples of my marbled papers from my last marbling session. I did get past the stones a few times. Starting at the top, these are a "diagonal stripe" with antique spots and a Spanish wave, then the "cathedral" pattern, some sort of "feather" pattern, a "nonpareil" pattern, and a "Gothic" pattern. These patterns may have other names, but these are the names with which I am familiar.

Repurposing materials for patchwork journals

I have finished another batch of journals made from repurposed and reclaimed materials. This time, the materials are the scraps and discards that I create when I make books. The catalyst for this project being the mountain of scrap leather on my floor last week.


So, the covers of these journals are made with small scraps of leather that have been matched and colour coordinated, adhered to a larger piece of leather, trimmed to fit a prepared textblock, then stitched.



The paper used for the pages has all come from the paper recycling bin beside my work table. That includes whatever I found in there, like papers from the computer printer, envelopes, sketchbook covers, paper leftover from other projects, etc. The result is an interesting mix of papers in each book, suitable for art journals or any writer who likes to get creative while journaling. Closures on these journals are made from either strips of leather found in the scrap pile and/or reclaimed buttons. I made eight of these books last week, and sadly, there has been no discernible difference in the size of Leatherscrap Mountain.

The Naked Book: Expose Yourself to Journaling

"The Naked Book honors the technical beauty of book construction with an exhibition of blank, handmade books suitable for use as journals, sketchbooks or other creative gestures. 35 artists from the US, Canada, and even Italy show their books in all their naked glory. Don’t be fooled, though—these blank books are gorgeous and beautifully crafted. All books are available to take home immediately so you can get started adding your own special touches or thoughts to the pages. These books also stand on their own as wonderful pieces of art and craftsmanship."

If you happen to be in Portland, OR be sure to check out 23 Sandy Gallery and The Naked Book exhibit! An online catalogue for this exhibit is available on their website.

Old time recycling

I try to recycle a lot of materials when I'm making books. It's a common trend now, really. As we all know, there were a few decades of excess leading up to the current Reduce, Reuse, Recycle generation. What happened before those decades of excess? Ah, I see, of course they recycled too! Obvious when you think about how the quilts and rugs and such were made. Apparently also true regarding scrapbooks and diaries. My mother works with a local historical society and has transcribed some old dairies and is now digitizing old scrapbooks. She mentioned that some of the diaries were homemade, using brown paper that was stitched together to make a book. These scrapbooks, which belonged to Mrs Burnett, are also very homemade.

This first photo shows a scrapbook made from wallpaper. Large sheets of wallpaper were folded in half and sewn together with string to make a book. These newspaper clippings were collected during the 1940s and 50s so they are aging pretty well. The wallpaper was likely much better quality paper than the newspaper clippings, so that has probably helped.


Before Mrs Burnett made that handy scrapbook from wallpaper, she also used Eaton's catalogues for her newspaper clippings. One of these scrapbook catalogues is from 1925, also aging very well. Check out the price of those full-grain leather workboots - shipping included!


Wallpaper books and Eaton's catalogues, filled to overflowing with newspaper clippings. How's that for some recycling genius?

New marbled papers

I did some marbling last week. Each time that I pull out my marbling gear, I try a wide range of patterns and techniques, but also I will focus on a couple techniques or patterns in an attempt to improve them by doing them over and over. As you can see from the first few pictures here, I did a bunch of free-form curls on stone patterns - with and without antique spots. (Looks simple, but in fact, I find the antique spots very difficult to apply well.) Actually, these are all basically stone patterns - the black one is the Italian Vein variation, and the last one is stones with a spanish wave.

Collecting the mail

I've been collecting used mailing envelopes from a few different sources and recently realized that the collection had grown almost out-of-control. I save the envelopes to make journals, where the envelopes are used as the pages. With my current supply, I was able to make seven journals, with some envelopes left over. So I started with stacks and stacks of these: And finished with these: The covers are decorated with various bits and pieces saved from old mailing materials, like this one which uses a green security pattern for the decorative paper embellished with some clipped postal marks and stamps from Japan. Or in some cases, the embellishments are printed directly onto the envelopes, like this junk mail sweepstakes example. And all of them have envelopes for pages, with all the security patterns, plastic windows, and stamps in tact to make for a very interesting journal-keeping adventure.

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.