A Notebook For My Morning Pages

 

So something a bit different this post (meaning it's not about glass!).

A lot of people will have heard of the book The Artist's Way. (this is an affiliate link - if you buy it I will get a tiny sum.  You can see my whole bookshop here.)

 

I’ve been aware of it for years, but I’ve finally decided to follow the 12 week programme.

Part of the programme is writing morning pages.  3 pages of stream of consciousness at the beginning of your day, to get all the rubbish out of your head and give you a fresh start.

 

 

Again I’ve heard lots about morning pages but never had a go before.

 

So to show my commitment to the programme and my morning pages I made myself a notebook to write them in.

 

I haven’t done any bookbinding for so long!  

 

 

And while it did take me a second to remember how to stitch the signatures together, everything else felt easy.  And all my kit was where I expected it to be too!  Bonus.

 

I thought I was going to cover it with yellow paper, but changed my mind at the last second – having already used yellow thread to stitch the signatures together.

 

So I used yellow paper as my end papers and some off cuts of ‘leather’ wallpaper to cover it.

I didn’t want it to be too good to use!

 

I think it one of the chunkiest books I’ve made – but I did the maths to see how many pages I would need for 3 pages a day for 12 weeks, so hopefully it’s big enough.

 

If I decide to continue with morning pages after the programme I’ll have to decide if I want to make a book each time or come up with a different solution, but that’s something to worry about in a couple of months time.

 

 

It felt good to do something I haven’t done for a while and have a good result.

 

Now I look forward to seeing what I can get out of The Artists Way and how it might help me to improve my creative practice.

Wedding Cards: Book and Book Box

 This summer 'im outdoors and I have been married 10 years!

It doesn't feel that long ago, but then I think of all the things that have happened since and I guess it really is.

 

After everything had settled down again after the big day and I started to put things away, I found we had a mass of beautiful cards filled with love and best wishes from friends and family.  I didn't want to just stick them in a box in the loft.  But what to do with them?

 At some point I got the idea to bind them into a book, so you could open them and still read the nice messages inside.  But at that point it was a bit beyond anything I'd ever done before.  I had a kinda idea, but nothing solid, so they just got put away in a box.

Then last year I did an online bookbinding course and that started to solidify my ideas and so I finally decided to give it a go.

I found some wedding gift wrap in a shop on offer so bought a couple of sheets, I wish I'd bought another now.

 

And I found the purple card and paper we used for all our wedding invites etc in a cupboard. 

Last autumn I started by folding concertinas out of the A4 purple paper.  Then I sewed some of the cards into the valley folds.  It did work, but it was hard to do with the cards flopping all over the place and I was having second thoughts.  Thr project got put on hold.

 

But I was determined to finish it.  Beside everything was in the way.  I wrote myself a motivational note (Just F**king Do It!!) and I finally got on with sewing the cards to the concertinas. 

It was hard, but I stuck an audio book on to listen to, and so instead of thinking about how hard it was I was listening to the book and suddenly all the cards had been sewn in.

 

Normally I'd have left them like this and just added a cover, but the cards were heavy and had a mind of their own, so I clamped them up and stuck some scrim along the spine to give it some structure.  This worked very well.

Now everything wasn't flopping around it was much easier to sort out the cover.  I used black bookcloth and some of that gift wrap for the end papers.

 

When I'd been tiding up I found a spare photo of me and 'im outdoors and decided to stick it into the front cover.  It just makes this book more personal to us.

With the book made I then made a book box to hold it and keep everything safe.  Although quite a simple project I forgot how much resources it takes up and had to buy more grey card and as I said I wished I'd had more gift wrap.

But now it's finished I am so pleased with it!  It's probably the project I've thought about for the longest - always at the back of my mind, so it's sort of a relief to have finally finished it.  And just in time for our anniversary.

And the study has been cleaned and tided and ready for my next project.  All in all it feels like a very safisfing outcome.

Paper Marbling - An Introduction

 This week I was once again back at West Dean.  As I've said to several people it really is quite addictive.  They have such a great range of courses, the tutors are all wonderful (so far) and the atmophere is great.

 

As someone who loves making books, I've always been fascinated by marbled papers and think they are really beautiful, but I've never had a go.  I don't even remember doing this at school.  I'd seen lots on Instagram too, so when I saw West Dean were running an introductory course I jumped at the change to try it.

 

Louise our tutor was lovely, and gave us lots of information about how to marble paper successfully.  It's not quite as simple as you might think.

 

In the morning we learnt all about how to make the different patterns using combs, sticks and washing up liquid, before spending the afternoon playing and finding our style.

 

It was very messy, but I loved how immediate it was.  You could see how the pattern turned out as soon as you lifted your paper from the tray, so it was easy to learn and try again if it wasn't quite right.

 

We stopped an hour before the end of the day to tidy everything up.  This also allowed our prints time to dry, although a couple of hair dryers might have been deployed to speed things up.  We then had a bit of time to look at each others work and reflect on what had worked or not for us.

 

I was very pleased to come home with 23 prints and plenty of knowledge about how to do it at home if I think the house could deal with the mess!  The real question is, can I bring myself to use any of them?

 

If you are interested I would totally recommend this course.  Now to go wash the paint splatters off my shoes.  (The photos really don't show the wonderful metalic paints I used at all!)

Introduction To Bookbinding - Week Six

 

 This was the last class in the series and the one I was really looking forward to - making a clam shell box.

 

The idea is to make a box the perfect size to hold a book and keep it safe.  But I decided I wanted a box to put all 5 weeks worth of books in to keep everything together.  This just meant I was working to a sightly larger size.

 

Because I was working on quite a big box I ended up using wrapping paper for my box cover and brown paper for the book cover, just to have something big enough for the project.

It's a bit of a fiddly project and when I make my next one I will take a little more time setting up my glueing to make sure things are lined up better.  I'll also give my spine a little more room so it folders better and doesn't split the cover. 

 

I also now know that I could make a 4 sided internal box rather than the 3 sided that I made and how that would all work, which is exciting.  So many possibilities.

So there we go, the 6 week introduction to bookbinding course complete.  I've enjoyed it and learnt some new skills to complement what I already knew.  I'm looking forward to trying them out on my next project. 

Introduction To Bookbinding - Week Five

 

This week on the Introduction to Bookbinding course we made a button hole binding.

This is a really interesting design allowing you to see the inside of the book while it's closed.  And while it looks quite impressive, it's actually quite simple to make.

 

I was a little disappointed with the video for this one.  It felt like part of it was missing, especially round how to create the cover.  It didn't stop me from making one, but having made it I can see my spine should have been thinner.  I'll know for next time.

I did however love the idea of including an envelope in one of the signatures, giving you a little pocket to put things in, making this a good one for a journal or travel diary. 

Only one more week to complete and the one I've been really looking forward to - the clam shell box.

Introduction To Bookbinding - Week Four

 

This weeks bookbinding projects included a bojagi scroll book and a Chinese thread book.

With limited time I decided to focus on the Chinese thead book and had a lot of fun folding each of the sections.  

 

Apparently it was originally design to hold small sewing notions, but could hold anything really.  She has a different project on her site which uses them to create a Christmas advent calendar with each one for a different day and holding a chocolate.

I love this project as it includes a couple of hidden sections too!

 

I just used plain paper for this one as I wasn't sure how it would come out, but it could look really nice using a printed paper design.

 

I'd like to try this again, but including a closer to hold it closed when its full of goodies.

It was a fun little project to spend an afternoon on.  I think they could make some nice gifts to give friends and family.
 

Introduction To Bookbinding - Week Three

 

This week we were making stab bound books.  So instead of sewing our pages together then adding a cover we bound the whole lot together.

First we made a soft bound list book.  This was very quick to make, but makes a nice little book.

 

Next we made a hard covered book.  I love this so much!  Each cover is made of two parts to give a flexible spine.

I used some gold paper from my stash and was going to use a pretty yellow paper for the end papers but then realised I hadn't quite cut the boards square.  But the gold paper was on by then so I used a white and silver stripy paper bag instead.  (didn't want to waste that yellow paper on a not quite right book.)

 

Even though it's not quite right I do really love the gold book.  I want to try it again and maybe use some of the more decorative sewing techniques that she showed us.  

Another interesting week adding to my knowledge of bookbinding.

Introduction To Bookbinding - Week Two

 

As anyone who has been paying attention can see it has been more than a week since the first Intro to Bookbinding course, but I've been a little busy.  And that is the beauty of online courses, you can come to them as and when you have time.

This week I made time and I made 4 pamphlet books.

 

The first 2 are very simple.  Just a couple of A4 sheets cut down to make an A6 book and some lovely cumpled brown paper (part of some packaging from something that was posted to me) as a cover of sorts.  The first was the most basic, just 3 holes and then the second a little more complicated with 5 holes!  I think I like the 5 holes best.

 

Then using some of the first weeks folding technique, we attached our pamphlets to an accordian spine before trying 2 different types of cover.  A soft cover and a hard cover.

 

I love both of these and with a slightly thicker paper the soft cover would be amazing!  And I have an idea where I might use this for a personal project, so watch this space.

 

I found it best to watch the full video first so I know what is expected, then I can make sure my paper colours all work together, so I used a yellow accordian spine in the stripy soft cover book and a blue accordian spine in the stary hard cover book.

 

Loving that I'm getting a reminder of some stuff I already knew and learning new techniques to complement this.

I'm looking forward to week 3.  Hopefully it won't take quite so long to get there.

Introduction To Bookbinding - Week One

 

When I first created this blog I was very interested in papercrafts and bookbinding in particular.  I still am interested in both these things, its just I've found out about lots more crafts since then and so maybe I have a little less focus than I used to.

 

Anyway, this year I have a couple of bookbinding projects that I would like to create and so I thought it might be a good idea to have a refresher, seeing as I haven't really done any bookbinding for the last couple of years.

 

I've been following @yvettejah for ages and love her projects so when I found out she runs an online introduction to bookbinding, I signed up.  

 

I've just completed week one, although it actually took me two weeks to complete. 

 

I like that we started by just looking at how we can fold books out of paper, no need to sew.  It was fun to fold the projects and see how they would come out.  Already I'm full of ideas of how I could use them.

Ori Folder

 

Once we'd played with folding, we created an Ori Folder and a Blizzard Book.  I love both very much and again I already have ideas about how I could use them in the future.

With week one complete I'm looking forward to seeing what week two holds.  I've already learnt five new ways to make books, and I've got a feeling it's not going to stop there.

Blizzard Book