Congratulations, Braeden and Chika!

It's been a while since I've shared a custom book here, with all the blogging I've been doing lately about teaching workshops and exhibiting at craft shows. But I'm thrilled to show this custom wedding album that I created for Braeden and Chika, who got married last week. 

The couple has been living in Japan, but flew back to the US for their wedding. Coincidentally, my best friend and her fiance have been living in Japan since last year, and they'll also be coming back to the US to tie the knot later this month. (I'll be making a book for their wedding too, using one of the marbled papers shown here.)

I used a chiyogami paper printed with a cherry blossom pattern for the covers, and the book is bound using the Japanese stab binding technique. The first page features a space for Braeden and Chika to display one of their wedding photos, as well as some flower illustrations created by me. 

They also wanted to include the phrase "The best memories are made with the best people" on the opening page. What a fitting sentiment for a wedding album. My wedding day was truly one of the best days of my life, and a huge part of that was being able to spend the day with all of my favorite people. My friends and family live all over the globe, and it was amazing to have everyone I care about in the same place at the same time for one special weekend. I hope Braeden and Chika had a similar experience and were able to celebrate with everyone who means the most to them.

Braeden and Chika were planning to have a photo booth at their wedding, so they wanted a guest book that would double as a photo album to hold the photos taken of their guests. Each page of the book has space for two 4x6 photos. I made more than 300 photo corners by hand to hold all of the photos in place. The photo corners were made from the same brown cherry blossom paper that was used for the covers of the book. There is space beside each photo for guests to write a message to the bride and groom.

I'm so pleased with the way all of the details came together for this book. I love the delicate design of the pages, the one-of-a-kind photo corners, and the soft edges of the paper created by tearing each page by hand. I hope Braeden and Chika are as happy with the result as I am, and that this book will be a cherished keepsake from their wedding day for years to come. 

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Back to Athens for the Craftstravaganzaa

This weekend we headed down to Athens, GA to set up shop at the Athens Indie Craftstravaganzaa.  After graduating from the University of Georgia three years ago, I've only been back to town a handful of times so participating in this show was the perfect excuse to make another visit. 

The show took place in a large parking lot right in downtown Athens on the corner of Clayton and Pulaski Streets.  As all of the vendors arrived in the morning to begin setting up our booths, we found that a single car had been left in the parking lot overnight (see photo above).  There was some last minute shuffling of booth locations to make room for all of the 50+ vendors, along with the lone black Toyota, but in the end it all worked out just fine.  In fact, it even resulted in an extra aisle along the side of my booth so shoppers could view my work even better as they entered the show.  

While sales were a little slower at this show than the others I've done over the past year (there seemed to be a lot more browsers than shoppers this weekend) we were lucky to have amazing weather and it's always great to spend a weekend in Athens.  We stayed with my wonderful friend Diana while we were in town (she was a bridesmaid in my wedding two summers ago).  She brought us food and drinks throughout the 9-hour art show, and then she cooked an amazing dinner for us after the show on Saturday.  A few other college friends, who now live in Atlanta, made the trip over to Athens to come to the show and hang out with us on Saturday night.  

Diana also introduced us to a few new restaurants when we were in town.  When we got into Athens late on Friday night, she brought us to the new location of Transmetropolitan for pizza (the pizza I tried was called the Hungry Sasquatch).  I must admit that I think I like the new location even better than the original one that I enjoyed throughout my years at UGA.  And on our way out of town on Sunday morning we got breakfast at Mama's Boy after Diana highly recommended it as her favorite breakfast spot in Athens.  

Stay tuned for a few more posts about the Athens Indie Craftstravaganzaa, including a few of my favorite artists from the show and a guest post from my husband Tony about an interesting booth design trend that he noticed.  

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A very special paper delivery

While I was in Raleigh for The Handmade Market, I had the opportunity to meet the women behind my favorite online paper shop, Paper Mojo. They have an amazing selection of papers for sale, exceptional customer service, and a lively facebook page. So when I knew that I'd be heading down to their neck of the woods for the market, I invited them to stop by my booth to say hello. After chatting online for months, it was so nice to meet them in person.  Megan even took a few pictures of my work and featured me on the Paper Mojo blog.  

I also placed a new paper order with them a few days before The Handmade Market, and they happily hand-delivered my papers to me at the show. I'm incredibly excited about this newest assortment of papers. I selected a few of my tried-and-true favorites, like the gold and silver coated lokta papers and the papers printed with the metallic chrysanthemum patterns.  I also picked out a few new papers, like the dramatic marbled papers shown above.  

Overall, my order was pretty heavy on the blues and greens since I had a particular book in mind while making my selections.  One of my best friends, who I've known since the first day of kindergarten, will be getting married at the end of May.  I'll be making a very special wedding guest book for her, which will coordinate with her wedding colors.  I'm really looking forward to getting started on this book for her, but most of all I'm excited to be her matron of honor and standing next to her as she marries the love of her life.  

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A pack rat's nest

I'm sure I've mentioned a few times that I'm a bit of a pack rat.  I save scraps of leather that are too small for book covers.  I find ways to make even the tiniest bits of paper useful.  And I even save pieces of leftover thread.

I hate the feeling of running out of thread just as I'm about to finish the binding of a Coptic journal or a Japanese stab bound photo album.  And it's so much easier to tie a final knot to complete a book when you have some extra thread to work with.  So I usually cut a bit more thread than I'll need when working on a more complex binding.  But as a result, I'm left with short -- but still potentially useful -- pieces of thread.  I've been saving these bits of thread for months in a colorful nest-like pile thinking they'd be perfect for sewing little pamphlet books, and this weekend I dove into my stash and made a bunch of new booklets.

Each of the books has a different decorative paper for the cover (all coming from my box full of leftover papers, of course).  You might recognize some of these papers from previous custom orders or books in my etsy shop.  These little books are perfectly pocket-sized, and small enough to fit inside an envelope to send to a friend as a little "just because" gift.  I'll be bringing all of these little pamphlet books with me to Athens, GA this weekend for the Athens Indie Craftstravaganzaa.  And soon I'll be selling them in my etsy shop in little color-coordinated bundles.  

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