Bon Voyage Sale!

12 days left until I leave the country! On Monday the 12th I'll be closing up shop until I return to the bindery in July. In honor of our upcoming adventures I'm having a 30% off Sale in my Etsy Shop.

 If you'd like to make a purchase, add an item to your cart and click the check out button. In the "notes to seller" portion, be sure to let me know your email address. Click to complete your order, but refrain from going to Paypal to pay. and I'll email you a revised invoice that will include a link to complete your payment.

Back to the bindery for now! I'm sewing a HUGE book today! I'm a busy bee with the sunshine streaming in. I'm taking pictures of everything I'm finishing up, so I'll be able to share everything with you when I have the time. :) Cheers!

New in the Shop

In preparation to leave the country, I've been catching up on emails, making my to-do lists, and crossing things off bit by bit! Meanwhile, these photos are of two books that are new in the shop this week. The photo above is of a single needle coptic stitch cover with paper from Chena River Marblers, with a closure using twine and buttons from my vintage button jar.

This coptic uses the four needle stitch and is covered with some of Claire Maziarczyk's beautiful paste paper and a vintage transfer of three happy radishes! Aren't those little veggies darling?

The marbled coptic would be good for drawing or journaling, and the radish coptic would be good for writing in metallic pen or using photo corners to make it a miniature photo album.

Mission Accomplished: Guest Books & Exciting News

Voila! Three earth friendly looking guest books! I've obscured the logos on the front covers, but otherwise, that's just what they look like. I finished them on Friday morning, so I had plenty of time to turn them in before their afternoon deadline.

Ollie kept me company, and thankfully a squirrel kept him entertained, so he wasn't chasing paper around the bindery!

Here is a shot of what I use for my job backer (the contraption that holds the text block in place while the shoulders are formed). Gilding boards with binders board support strips are set securely into a lying press. I use a jewelers hammer and a fender hammer for rounding.

It had been a while since I'd sewn an endband, and it was fun to get to do six of them!

 Now for the biggest news of all! On Wednesday Josh and I found out that we'll be relocating to Paris for 3 months! He leaves on Friday and I'll join him the first week of April after I finish up projects in the bindery. It's just now sinking in that this is really happening. I didn't have time to think about it while I was working on the guest books, so it's been a great weekend just daydreaming about all of the things we'll get to see and do in the next couple of months. Me-oh-my!

Calm before the Quiet Storm

I have a big day ahead of me! Within the hour, printed pages for three textblocks will be delivered to my door and I'll spring into action so they can be bound and sent to California on Friday. Mind you, springing into action means doing various quiet activities like folding, sewing, gluing, and only a bit louder - cutting.

So before my flurry of binderly activity begins, here's a tranquil photo of a tiny, fully resolved book that is happily resting in the sun in the bindery. And with that, I can start my day with an accomplishment! Blog post: check!

Boxed Book Set To Be Auctioned

 
This boxed book set will soon find a new home with the highest bidder! It will be up for auction this Saturday at Our Lady of the Lake in Seattle. OLL is where my mom teaches Kindergarten. The pictured set will be bundled with a set of my handmade cards as well as a little pair of miniature book earrings. The fine Seattle Stationer, Silberman / Brown, donated an elegant boxed pen that fits into the side pen compartment.

 
The box is covered with green and blue Asahi bookcloth while the inside trays are lined with the decorative Japanese paper that also accents the covers of both the box and the coptic book.

  
www.ollauction.org is the very thorough website dedicated to the auction. Last night I spent quite a bit of time drooling over the many items and packages that will be there this weekend! If you're in the Seattle area, head on over to the Yellow Section to bid on item 1091!

Oreo Button Book

 
This was my Sunday morning project. I had my jar of buttons open, along with all of my tiny supplies for making book earrings, and my fingers just went to work making this tiny coptic with button covers.

  
The pages are a thick cotton paper. After tracing the button size onto the paper I cut them out with my olfa blade, stacked them together, and then sanded the edges.

  
The covers are about 28 mm in diameter, so they're a bit bigger than a quarter.

  
I used one piece of thread and two needles for the binding. Aside from being used as the closure, the brown thread is also used to cinch the threads together where the covers meet the spine, otherwise they were sort of free-floating.

 
Now what do I do with it? Maybe I'll use it as a button sketchbook. I'll pull my favorites out of the jar and capture them in graphite!

Carnival of Love: Stationery Box

On Wednesday I joined Sarah of Orange Blossom Ink at the Carnival of Love at planIT! boutique. I got to see some great friends, like Grace Edmands, and also meet a lot of neat new people. It was a themed bridal event for local brides and grooms so they could get an idea of what area vendors have to offer. I didn't get a chance to visit with everyone, but one of my favorite vendors was Big City Catering, because they had carnival themed food stations set up all over the lovely boutique.  A popcorn station, where guests had their choice of toppings from garlic to chocolate powder, a hot dog station, again with a wide array of toppings, and my favorite, the snow cone station! I lingered for a while with the snow cones because I had a great time talking to the Big City Intern who was manning the station. She is actually preparing for her own wedding!

The box in these photos was my contribution for a joint take-home prize! Lisa and Sarah designed and printed some cute cards that matched the decorative paper on the box. I didn't stay for the whole evening so I'm not sure who ended up with it,  but I might request some of the cards myself,  because they were so cute!

 
Here is a list of all of the great vendors who were present:
Lori Barbely Photography, Big City Catering, planIT! boutique, Peddles Florist,  Kismet’s Arrow, Funfactory Entertainment, Orange Blossom Ink, Harpist Christine MacPhail, Grace Edmands Calligraphy, Cut the Cake, and Anavi Ink

Sixth and Final Handmade Winner: Yarn Box

 
Here is my final giveaway project! I made this yarn box for a friend I met at North Bennet Street. We were there for the same two years, she was down the hall from me studying Piano Technology while I was in the Bookbinding department.

  
From time to time I noticed Emily working on lovely knitting projects and discovered that she is an avid knitter. I found a little bit of inspiration while browsing Etsy one day and immediately thought of making something for my knitting piano tech friend! I found a shop called Darrielles Clay Art filled with beautiful stoneware pottery. Something that caught my eye was this yarn holder. It intrigued me and I ended up searching the web and finding other yarn holders here and there.

  
I thought it would be fun to transform this idea into my own craft. So I wrote to Emily to find out about what size a yarn ball would be at it's largest and got to work.

  
The ball of yarn fits into the box with the end of the yarn threaded through the opening slot. The lid fits snugly into the top of the box if you want the yarn to stay put, or it can pop off if you'd like to take the yarn out!

By the way, if you live in Texas and are looking for an excellent piano technician, Townsend Piano Service is the place to go!