Featured:

Today Robin from Savannah Soap Kitchen featured me (well, my book) on her new site Etsy Under $20 and I’m super excited.

She has quite a few good finds on there actually- I’m a little jealous. What a super neat idea, in this economy, to feature items from Etsy that are not only handmade, but also affordable. Sweet.

Housekeeping

I do so miss creating things- sometimes. I haven’t really ‘made’ anything (except a baby) since Christmas, and even that was before Christmas- geesh. During the holiday season I created and designed and worked out so many ‘things’ that once it was over, I needed a GIANT break from it all, and I took it.

Since then, I’ve mostly been working on my altered book/fertility/pregnancy journal, and most recently I began another altered book/journal just for every day use. We bought a new desk to grace our bedroom, so now I try to keep most of my work stationed in there so we can actually eat dinner at the dinner table instead of in various rooms on tv trays. I’m trying.

And that’s my excuse for not creating anything new, out of the ether, either for fun, for friends, or for etsy. However, I do still have a backlog of work that I have yet to post to Etsy- so I hope in these next few weeks to get those all posted. A bit of housekeping I’ll call it.

So, without further ado:
Beetles & Ribbon- this is by far my most popular type of book- meaning, people LOVE this paper. Really, it is beautiful, and I hate bugs, so that’s saying something. This one is a bit larger than most of the books I make (8 1/2  x  5 1/2) and is filled with blank archival white speckled paper that is 50% sugar cane, 30% post consume, and 20% recycled fiber.This means no new trees! I Love this paper, which is why I use it in nearly all of my books.

South America – The ideal size (4 1/4 x 5 1/2) these books are a joy to make and an ever better joy to write or draw in. I found this Atlas at the local library a few months back and usually my problem with purchasing ($1!) beautiful old books is that I refuse to tear them up or use them in any way, even if that’s the sole purpose I’m buying them for in the first place. I finally broke this one out and started to make a few book covers with the pages within.  Thus far I’ve made a Sweden (Sold!) and a Brazil (also Sold!) and this one is of the southern tip of South America and the Atlantic Ocean. Love.

Stamps in Blue – Another paper I adore that I bought a few years back to create a blank journal for a friend of mine, I finally finished up the last of the paper creating these last two stamp themed books. One has a pale pink paper inside, the other the same post consume paper as mentioned above. This is the latter. Also small, this book fits in the palm of your hand and is easy to just carry around on any travels or excursions.

So that’s what I have for now, and even two of these have yet to be listed on Etsy. Give me time. I like to list no more than one a day:) Be well, and hopefully this winter will be over soon.

Ok, we’ll try this again. Posted new book. http://ping.fm/W00CN

books books and more books

Over the past month I’ve managed to finish about 10 handmade journals/books that I’m setting up to sell today at a Holiday Open House in the neighborhood.

Yesterday I set out to price and tag all of the things I’ve made over the past few months to ready myself for the Open House and only then did I realize just how much I have created. It’s quite amazing actually, and I impressed myself with the pure heft of what I’ve done.

Of course, I’ve only photographed each item individually, so as I type this I’m thinking about bringing the large tote with all my books, and the second tote with all my knits, back upstairs to photograph in their entirety, but really, I’m too lazy, tired, and just plain pig-headed to do that right now.

Perhaps I will take a picture of my table at the Open House and that will fill this post out later today.  Perhaps.

Or I could just say I have an inventory list of THIRTY ONE books and TWENTY FIVE knits, plus a dozen or so pin back buttons and nine sets of linocut cards.  Really, I had no idea I’d spent that much time making things.

I suppose I might stop until next Christmas.

highly irritated

So, as the morning presses on my cheeks become redder, my heart constricts a little more and the glue on my fingers is drying slowly enough to crack off with each hit of the keyboard. The baby is sleeping, I have a Jacob’s Ladder and four covers pressing downstairs and though I should go finish two more, I’m sitting her getting ready to rant about nothing in particular. Ok, maybe not rant. I’m not quite angry enough to rant, yet.

I bought this super cool World’s Gazetteer and Atlas a few months ago at the Library’s annual ‘buy as much crap as you can’ sale and I haven’t touched it since.  I’ve wanted to make a few books out of maps for a while, but I bought this book, and I haven’t had the courage, I guess, to just start ripping pages out. It’s beautiful. It’s old.  It’s huge.  And I didn’t want to ruin it. But, I bought it for $2 for the sole purpose of ruining it, sort of, and so, last night, I finally ripped out a map of Norway and Sweden and made a small book cover out of it.  I also collaged another one, something that I’d been meaning to do back when I was planning on making some books for the DDR-athon my husband was going to put on, but that’s a long story we shant get into here.

Anywho, I did it.  And I Love it. So, today, I made two covers out of a map of Brazil.  Yay!

I’ll post pictures eventually, when the book blocks are sewn and attached and all that good stuff.

I decided I’m going to make about a handful of these small 4.25″ x 5.5″ books to have on hand for various reasons because I think they’re the nicest things I have to offer.  They open flat, they have covered spines which people tend to enjoy, and they’re still hard covered. And the paper grain is running the right way and I have the supplies with which to do it all with, so it works out nicely.  And they fit right in the palm of your hand and, well, yeah, I like them.

We’ll see how many I manage to get done this weekend, since I’ve put the knitting aside for now hopefully I’ll get a few.  I still have a knit throw to post on esty this week, if only I could get around to photographing it, and by then I’ll have at least two books to post as well.

Ahh yes, the procrastination fairy strikes again.