Building Cases

The last few days in the studio have been spent making color selections and building cases. I had a lot of fun matching up papers to book cloth and it actually didn't take me nearly as long as I had originally thought it would. I built a case out of each of the 4 colors I had to choose from; white, black, off white and pink. I put the cases together in a four corners kinda thing and put a pocket on each color and did process of elimination until I ended up with my favorite combination.

I ordered my cloth from Talas and then was headed through Portland a few days later so I bought my papers before I had samples of my cloth to take with me. I was a little bit nervous when I started matching everything up but it all worked out beautifully in the end.

Once I matched a paper to the color cloth I was going to use I paper clipped some scratch paper with the number of pockets and the color cloth on the front and started to make a list and piles of pockets. I was pretty proud of my organization once I was done with everything and staring at my list and piles :)

Once completed with the list I picked everything up off my bench and got to work making the set number of cases that I needed.
This is only my second very large scale order so I'm still working out a process for production work but I think I've gotten a pretty good rhythm down now. I did learn that I needed more equipment to make larger projects, I usually only have 1 or 2 books in my presses at any given time so the two that I've had served my needs just fine. One of my presses was too small for the 3 pocket folios and the other only held two at a time, so the solution of course was to build new presses!

I'll share some pictures of the new presses, and my fantastic trip to the coast yesterday tomorrow! For now I'll leave you with a peak of the first pink folio out of the press this afternoon!

The sale has begun...

A few posts back I said that I was going to be starting a bit of a sale in the store, and it's slowly starting to begin. There are currently 5 items in the Sale section of my Etsy shop with more to come over the next few days. The discounts are deep, with only 1 less than 50% off.
If you've been interested in something that's been hanging around the my Etsy shop take a peek and check back as it might find it's way in there.

Happy Dance!

I hit 75 sales in my Etsy store today!
I had actually planned on offering some kind of a promotion, but 74 happened earlier this week and before I could think of it, 75 came right around the corner... actually while I was at the post office mailing out order 74! I guess that means I need to get to work so I can have something brain stormed for when I approach 100 sales!

I'm off to wrap up the order so I can drop it off at the post office tonight and avoid the tax lines tomorrow!

More Pockets!

I finished pocket construction last night, and only after I had finished did it occur to me that pocket folding would be a great tutorial... Maybe in the near future I'll work getting that together. Right now I present you with 75 folded pockets from 19 different sheets of paper. The two that I think are my favorite happen to be right next to each other, they are the white with pink cherry blossoms, and the pink & brown stripes. I love how the lines meet up perfectly even though there are two flaps making up the pocket!

The next step in pocket construction will be cutting all the board needed to get ready for case construction. I got a third of the board cut this afternoon. The cutting starts with finding the grain along the parent sheet. The direction of the grain is very important in every step of bookbinding, and everything in bookbinding has a grain to it. Finding grain on book board or mat board means taking the whole sheet and flexing it back and forth, this is easiest when the sheet is still whole in a big sheet. Once I find the grain I take a pencil and mark the grain direction every few inches so once it's cut into smaller pieces I'll always have the grain direction market.

Once I've found the grain it's time to get the board on my table and get it measured to size. I've never met a bookbinder who enjoys cutting mat board by hand as it's a chore. My mat cutter is on the fritz, but I would still say that using it is still cutting by hand as it's still a lot of work. However that's a conversation for another day, today is about making pockets! Today I cut one sheet down into 28 squares that will make up the case and the base that the pockets rest on.

I started by cutting the board into long strips that were then cut down further into squares. I plan on cutting one sheet a day for the next 2 days until I have all 75 squares that I need. As I said I really don't enjoy cutting board and it wreaks havoc with my wrists so I try not to have marathon board cutting sessions. Once the board is all cut I'll sand all the edges so they are nice and smooth for the cloth to cover. I highly advise sanding board outside or with a painters mask on, it creates a lot of fine dust that hangs in the air.
Over the next two days I also plan to make a case in white, off white, black, and pink over the next few days to put the pockets against to judge which pockets go with what color book cloth.

Also on the work bench for this week are two custom watercolor sketch books for a client. She contacted me looking for a specific paper, and I was luckily enough to find a fantastic deal on it in Portland so instead of taking just one, she ordered a second for gift for a friend too! They are going to be Celtic Weave with just white thread so the stitching won't be as noticeable on the page. I'm actually really excited to get started on them as I love that sewing and I've never done it with the same colored thread. She also wants eyelets set in the sewing stations and I love playing with my crop-a-dile, so as you can see it's a very exciting project as well.

Not a big change but I made the pictures larger today, anyone hate it? The pocket pictures were so small you couldn't really see much detail at all.
And to make myself look like the biggest geek in the world anyone out there playing Animal Crossing on the Wii? I just picked it up and have been visiting a few Etsy sellers, I would love to play with any of you that have the game!

Lazy Morning, Treasury Love

I'm have a very lazy morning today, however that seemed to have turned out for the best as I was able to snag a Treasury this morning! The Treasury features artists from both my local Eugene street team as well as the Bookbinding Team. I drew the inspiration for the colors for all the bright and vibrant spring colors outside my studio window making me Sneeze! The list will expire on Sunday morning (April 12th) so make sure to stop by before then.

I'm almost done with pocket production so stop back soon for that update!

Teaser Shot

I've been inspired by the blogging work of Hilke of Buechertiger on her Smiley Oracle production, and am hoping to try to do the same here with the first production of my wedding folio's. I am here today to give you a teaser shot of what is to come, today I finished cutting all the strips of paper to make the pockets with!
I think it's a whole lot of pink, however my husband insists that it's because I'm not a large fan of pink... I'm not sure who's right but either way as I said before it was a lot of fun to buy so much paper in one stop! I have a few sheets of left over/back up so the finished products might vary slightly. Christmas (otherwise known as my order from Talas) should be arriving tomorrow so I can start paring paper to book cloths. I am hoping that I am here to get the shipment as I have a wedding to attend Monday so that will delay my receiving the shipment until Tuesday, and I don't know if I can wait that long!

Next on folio production is matching papers to cloths, and then cutting all the board to size to start making the folio's. I've been putting off cutting board as it's my least favorite thing to do and my mat cutter isn't working properly. I called logan and a replacement piece is somewhere in the mail system so hopefully I won't have to cut all 75 pieces by hand.

Stay tuned for a "fire sale" coming next week, I've got some items I'm tired of seeing around the studio and am hoping to move out. I did a major photoshoot this afternoon after completing the strips and now I need to get through the editing and my Sister-in-law's wedding before it can begin.

Let them eat cake!

After spending the better part of this morning cutting paper for pockets I decided to spend the afternoon playing in sugar. This is my entry for this years edible book festival! Let me start by saying that I am by no means a professional baker so please don't send these pictures to Cake Wrecks. I meant to take pictures of the entire process but that didn't really happen as I got too excited and starting working away.

It's based on the title of one of my favorite books, House of Leaves by Marc Z Danielewski. It's a fantastic book, however I would venture to say it's not a book that everyone will like... it's a little unconventional with words in different colors, words swirling around a page, or only having one or two words per page, there are footnotes, and footnotes for footnotes that sometimes reference things that don't exist.... If you are still interested click on the wiki summary above for a bit more information and go get yourself a copy!

His sister is Poe; her Haunted album is inspired by or a reflection of the book. It is a fantastic album on it's own and is even better once you've read the book- listen to it with headphones on as you'll pick up so many little things....

Back to the cake! It's made totally from scratch, I don't know if I've ever said anything here but I'm deathly allergic to soy in almost any form... which means no cake mix or store bought frosting here. The leaves are made from fondant which amazingly enough I can actually eat (but probably won't, it just doesn't taste good). The cake is a yellow cake made from this recipe and the frosting recipe can be found here. I owe my husband a huge thank you for helping me with the two cakes, mixing the colors into the fondant and frosting, and shaving the cake down.
It's two 9x13 cakes cut in half, centered, stacked, and then shaved down to make the pitch for the roof.

I haven't decided what I really think of my cake yet... In retrospect if I had to do it all over again I would do it all in green, frost the house in green and make all the leaves green... have the doors be blue ... but that is the thing about doing something once, you get all kinds of great ideas about what you could have done better.
For now I'm off to clean up my sugary mess, have some real food, and go get back to my pockets.