Scrumptious Leather

The award giving caused quite a stir around here yesterday and I couldn't be more pleased! I had a record setting day for site traffic and possibly for comments as well!
Which could be viewed as the motivation for today, but it isn't- today I have this scrumptious leather journal to share with you. This journal, along with all the leather journals I will be posting and making for the next few months, are made from upholstery scraps. Which while they are luscious leathers sadly I have no information about them. I don't know what kind of animal they are of what kind of a finish they have on them.
This book is the structure I will be teaching in my upcoming classes at MECCA. MECCA should be releasing more details soon, but the first class will be September 9th and the leather workshop will run September 23rd and 30th.

My local Etsy street team held a meeting last night and we had a special guest stop by and I got some really fun toys. I don't have the energy or pictures to discuss it yet, but it's exciting. I'm packing up for a weekend trip to the Coast and Portland so I'll see you guys next week!

Busy Busy Me

I haven't forgotten you all! I promise!

I've just been really, really busy. It's trade show season at work, and if you have ever worked in the wholesale industry you understand what I mean.
It's also summer craft show time and I've done two in the last two weeks. Which is CRAZY for me. While I don't see my Etsy shop as a hobby (it's more a fledgling business) I've never gotten heavy into the craft market here. I had the show I had posted about last time which was a good day with friends and other vendors despite the crazy wind and bugs. While there the opportunity came up for me to do a recycled craft fair the next weekend. I jumped at the chance as it was a new venue and more time with good friends.
I got home and realized my recycled item stock was lower then I remembered and had a week to get stocked up.
I finally got to working with the pieces of scrap upholstery leather to make some leather journals and sketch books. I also did some crazy silk screening and sewing to make some rockin' recycled tote bags (no pictures yet sorry!).
While all of this was a blast I was so tired by the time the show was over I was ready to fall over as I haven't had a day since we got home from vacation where I wasn't working all day. And that is why I've not said a word in over a week. I've been crafting like a crazy lady.

The good news is that as soon as my camera and laptop become friends again I'll have some great new items to post in the ol' shop.

In the madness of the last week I was also awarded the "Arte y pico" blog award by Rhonda!

Thanks Rhonda!

Here is how the award works:
1) You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for, creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributing to the blogger community, no matter what language.
2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3) Each award-winner, has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4) Award-winners and the one who has given the prize should to show the link to the Arte y pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.
5) To show these rules.

Between getting this award, and finally getting around to posting about it I found out that it's not against the rules to give the award to someone who already has it! Which is great because I was starting to get stressed out!
My picks (in totally random order) for the award are:

Billie of Billie's Craft Room- Billie is a UK craft who does the most amazing things with ranger inks (don't worry I don't know what they are either!) and has recently joined the book arts forum and brings lots of great energy and ideas.

Chelsea of 88 Words- She's a very prolific blogger & her blog is always a good read and while I
don't comment as often as I should you can be sure I stop by everyday!

Bev of La Paperie & Cozy- Bev makes amazing leather journals filled with wonderful quotes and other things. My personal favorite of her shows my true inner geek, it had the Periodic table of elements in the front instead of a quote. It's sold, but I'm sure she would make you another one!

Aly of Bliss Monkey Studio- Aly's blog is a double dirty pleasure of mine- not only is her blog filled with fantastic stories of urban chickens and water ballon fights, but she has great stories about things in my own community I had no clue even existed!

Kevin of Library Preservation- Kevin probably doesn't know I read his blog on a regular basis. I've never left a comment but I love his blog. It's for the true geek in me, the one that longs to work on wet, damaged, well loved, or unloved books. I would love to have his day job "spends some of my time conserving rare and not so rare items. I also regularly teach book repair to Michigan library staff, and am a part-time faculty at Wayne State University, teaching introduction to preservation."
That is exactly what I aspire for some day.....

Ok not too bad, only one person that already has the award- but that's because I've been looking for a reason to share Billie's blog with you.

Hopefully I wont' be such a stranger between posts for the rest of the summer!

Ready to go

I've always loved that song by Republica, it's..ahem... an older song now.... but it still rocks really hard. I should put that on my ipod....

Anyways now that I'm rocking out in my own head I would love to talk about this little lovely on the right side of the page. I *love* this book! I splurged on this paper awhile back and had been waiting for the right design at the right time. It's a ribbon hinge journal which is constructed like a traditional book, but instead of gluing the text block on to the case the ribbons tie on the outside and hold it in place. This book also features a matching tie on the edges of the cover to keep it closed. The inside paper is a rich royal purple paper with a fantastic metallic sheen.
See I'm so in love with this book I'm already writing an amazing product description!

I've got a really stuffed set up for the show tomorrow so lots of options for those who can stop by!

Home Safe

Oahu was amazing and was exactly what I needed. I won't do too much rubbing it in, but I have to do a little :)
The picture of the Honu (Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle) I think is my favorite from the trip right now. We sat on the beach for awhile and watched them eat, then we dawned the snorkel gear and swam around with a few others that weren't sunning themselves.
All the snorkeling we did was awesome as the Oregon Coast is way too cold for getting in past your knees, let alone trying to snorkel. The water also isn't crystal blue so you probably wouldn't see to much anyways (I could be wrong as I've never stuck my head in the ocean here). I had a great time and didn't want to come home, but as they say all good things must come to an end.

Back on the home front I've been busy getting ready for a show we are doing locally this Friday in the lawn of the Oregon Community Credit Union on Chad Drive (next to Costco) so if you are local come on down and say hello! I'll be sharing a booth with Catherine of Bobcat Beads and lots of other local Etsy sellers will be on hand with lots of wonderful items for sale!
I've decided to try some chopstick notebooks for this show and they are a lot of fun to make. It's allowed me to use some of my smaller sheets of paper that I've collected, but I think I'll need a larger bead collection if I want to seriously get into making and selling these adorable little books.

I have one last thing to share before I get back to binding and prepping for Friday! I was over on Bev's Blog (La Paperie & Cozy) (yes I admit I was catching up on other blogs before getting to my own) and she has a great post up about what you can do with your own journal. If you needed any inspiration of what to fill a journal with stop by and read her post, it is filled with wonderful ideas!

Woooo!

I just received word that my introduction class has been approved and they want to schedule more advanced classes in the weeks that follow the first class. More details to follow after vacation!