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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Leather food chain

My table at The Handmade Market on Saturday was right across the aisle from Noelle of oelle m. She had a beautiful booth display and was selling her paintings, handbags, and embroidered pillows. (You can see more examples of her work on flickr.) But her leather necklaces are what really caught my eye. 

After staring at these gorgeous necklaces for a few hours, it dawned on me that I might have some supplies that Noelle could use.  When I make my leather journals, I often have scraps of leather left over that I just can't use.  Oftentimes these pieces of leather or suede are fairly large, but if I can't cut a rectangle from them large enough to cover my pages the leather bits will just end up in my scrap pile.  (And as my husband will tell you, I have a hard time parting with my scraps.  I have several boxes, bowls, and bags filled with scraps of paper, fabric, and leather sitting around my studio just in case I find a use for them later.) 

So I offered to send Noelle my extra bits of leather, thinking it would be a win-win for us both.  She'd have some extra materials to make new necklaces, and I'd be able to clear out my studio and send my leather to a good home.  And as we were leaving the show, she generously gave me one of her necklaces (the prettiest one, too!) to thank me.

I absolutely love my new necklace, and I've been wearing it both yesterday and today.  I received several complements on it at work today, and I got to share the story about how I got the necklace with my co-workers.  I have all of my leather scraps packaged up to send to Noelle tomorrow, and I'm glad to know I have someone to send my extra pieces to as I continue to make more leather books. 

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The Handmade Market

Yesterday my husband and I headed down to Raleigh, NC for The Handmade Market.  We woke up at 4 a.m. and hit the road soon after, coffee in hand.  It was foggy and raining when we left Virginia, but by the time we arrived in North Carolina the sun started to peek out from behind the clouds and it turned out to be a beautiful day.  Setting up for the show was a breeze since the tables were provided and we didn't need to worry about bringing a tent.  And thanks to my busy month of bookbinding, I had more than enough books to fill my display table.  

Those who stopped by my table at the show really seemed to enjoy flipping through my sculptural vintage map books and my "Cortona Clothesline" artists books.  My leather journals and wedding guest books were also quite popular.  And I almost sold out of my little pamphlet books (below), so I'll need to make some more of those before my show in Athens, GA next month.  

I met some fantastic people at the show, including the women of Paper Mojo (the online shop where I purchase most of my decorative paper).  The vendor at the table next to mine was photographer Mary Doherty, who had some photos of Charleston, SC on display (a place that's near and dear to my heart).  I also saw some earrings made from vintage postage stamps, sea creature themed ceramics from Cephalopod Ink, and some gorgeous leather necklaces. 

This was the first time that Tony and I had visited Raleigh, and although it was a whirlwind one-day trip we both really enjoyed the city and The Handmade Market.  Before heading out of town, we had an amazing meal at The Remedy Diner (vegetarian tacos for Tony and a warm goat cheese salad for me), and spent the four-hour drive home chatting about our day at the market and listening to a few episodes of Radiolab.

Want to see more photos from the show?  Visit my facebook page, or The Handmade Market flickr group. 

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On the front page again!

I'm thrilled to announce that one of my handmade books made it to the front page of Etsy again!  I was working in my studio yesterday evening making covers for some new photo albums when I happened to glance at my computer screen and notice that I was on the front page.  While my first front page appearance was certainly exciting, I found out about it after the fact.  This time I actually got to see it live up on the site.  (My delay in posting about this on the blog had nothing to do with lack of excitement; my hands were just covered in glue last night and I wanted to keep them away from my keyboard!)  

The treasury below, which includes one of my Italian longstitch books with a rust colored suede cover, was the curated collection featured on the front page yesterday.  A huge thank you goes out to Martata for putting together this gorgeous treasury!

'Rust can be Minty' by Martata

sunshineartdes... $25.00	beverlyyy $5.00	SilverSmack $30.00
LAccentNou $70.00	WoolyBison $15.00	DutchTouchAnti... $795.00
shirae $20.00	sadieolive $30.00	patriciavalery $50.00
zsbekefi $15.00	honeytree $30.00	LinenLaidFelt $30.00
TheJewelryStor... $190.00	zerbamine $20.00

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

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New products, new show, new newsletter

New products

I'm excited to finally debut my new line of spring journals. I stepped away from my more rustic leather and suede journals for a bit, and instead selected some bright shades of teal and butter yellow. Paired with vibrant thread and colorful papers inside, the result is a truly cheerful collection. Visit my etsy shop to purchase a spring journal.

New show

I just found out yesterday that I was accepted to participate in the Athens Indie Craftstravaganzaa.  I'm so excited to be heading back to my college town of Athens, Georgia.  Aside from what I'm sure will be a great show, I'm looking forward to seeing lots of great friends while in town.  The Craftstravaganzaa is just two weeks after The Handmade Market, so I have lots of new books to make over the next few weeks to get ready for these two shows, where I'll be unveiling my newest collection of wedding guest books and photo albums.

New newsletter

The newest linenlaid&felt e-newsletter was sent out this evening.  Are you on our mailing list?  If not, click here to see what you've been missing.  If you like what you see, you can sign up here or enter your e-mail address in the "join my newsletter" box in the right hand column of my blog.  My husband Tony is the mastermind behind my newsletters, and I can't thank him enough for all of his hard work putting together these quarterly e-blasts.  

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Taking over the house

Since Saturday, our dining room has looked a little something like this.  

For three days, I'd been busy cutting down sheets of decorative paper for the covers of my spring line of photo albums and wedding guest books. Since the work tables in my studio were already covered with other projects, I moved everything into the dining room and enjoyed spreading out on this big table.

Thankfully, spring weather arrived in Virginia this weekend, so my husband and I were able to eat our meals out on our front porch.  And the local farmers' market just opened up, so we stocked up on some local meats and veggies and have been cooking up a storm ever since.

It's a good thing that our lack of dining table space hasn't hindered our gourmet cooking (and eating) because just as I had cleared off the table last night, I decided I needed to use it to cut down some leather for more Italian longstitch journals.  Hopefully by the end of the week our dining room will be back to normal and my studio will be well-stocked with new books to work on. 

All this is in preparation for the upcoming Handmade Market in Raleigh, NC.  You can read a Q&A with me on the Handmade Market blog to learn more about my newest creation, my most treasured bookbinding tool, and the tunes I've been grooving to in the studio lately. 

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Fold, tear, glue, and sew

I recently taught a two-day bookmaking workshop at the Shenandoah Valley Art Center, and I wanted to share a few photos from the class.  Aside from casually teaching a few friends how to make some simple book structures, this was my first time teaching a class and everything went incredibly well.  

Before the class, I talked my husband and our friend into being guinea pigs for me as I practiced teaching the four binding structures I was planning to teach in the class and got a feel for how long it would take my students to make their own books.  I also cut down all of the bookboard, bookcloth, decorative paper, and leather ahead of time that we would need in the class.  This was a smart move because it saved a ton of time during the actual class, and allowed us to dive right into the fun part without worrying too much about measurements. 

I started off the first class with a little show-and-tell.  I brought in my collection of handbound books, both made by myself and other bookbinders I admire (like erinzam and minusplusminus), to inspire my students about the possibilities of bookbinding.  

Then we started creating ourselves by making two accordion books, while learning the basics of paper grain and folding and tearing paper.  The first book was a structure similar to this style, where the softcover books are assembled without adhesive or stitching.  Next, we took it a step further and created a double concertina book with a hard cover, like this. 

Day two of the class focused on sewn structures.  First we made a simple one-signature pamphlet book to get the sewing basics down.  Then we made Italian long-stitch books with leather covers, which were certainly more complicated but also more rewarding when completed.  You can see examples of my students' books in the photos directly above and below.  I've heard from several students who have continued to make a few books since the class, including one who just learned the Coptic stitch!  It was so much fun for me to introduce some new people to the world of handbound books.  

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