My Plan

On my long list of things to bring to training is writing paper. That was sort of boring, and I want to be able to have at least something small to be creative with, so I cut up a bunch of scrap watercolour paper into postcard-sized pieces and I'll bring that instead. It's amazing what a travel palette and a few waterproof pens can do.

The Moral of the Game

My friend Caryn (of kite fame) bought the painting I did of her. yay! And when she sent me the cheque for it she included some terrific old board games she'd found, just in case I wanted to use them. Which of course I did. They aren't really board games, though, they're on very thin flexible cardboard, which is even better because it's easy to wrap around the book board.

I'm sending one back with the painting just as soon as I figure out the best way to ship something so heavy.

The Snakes and Ladders games I used for the cover is highly moralistic. With 'penitence' leading up to 'grace' and 'disobedience' down to 'disgrace' and the like. It's kind of amusing. When I was little I actually had a giant plastic version of this exact game, though I don't remember is it had the words.

The inside paper is bright red and blue, to go with the squares of the game. I changed the usual way I do the back leather pieces into smaller strips to go with the square outlines. This photo is of the back, and I like what I did with the strap that holds it together. Instead of sewing down the actual strap I put another leather strip over top and sewed it instead. It matches everything better this way, I think.

The leather I was using was just scraps, and the strap holding it together at the front had an angled corner. I though it kind of added something, so I just left it.

A Well Travelled Postcard Book

I wonder if other people like collecting postcards as much as I do? I like museum and gallery gift shops better than the actual exhibits. So, for another entry to the Hotel Sask store, is a new postcard book. It used to have a leather cover too, the same colour as the straps, but it didn't look quite right. You couldn't see the stitching well and it was just too much. Plus it was sitting a little crooked. Turns out that's actually the inside bit, but I'd ripped it apart by then anyway. At least I got to put it back together in such a way as to minimize it, at least.

The paper is blue inside and out, so instead of having contrasting paper that way I made all the little pockets out of different map and stamp printed paper. I like it!

I tired something a little different on this one. Instead of making two separate back pieces, the inside one with the sewing and tabs, and the outside one covering it all up, I just made one and put the sewing on display.The spacing of the stitches moves a little because of the room between the folds, so I haven't quite decided if I like it or not like this. It is faster and simpler to make, so I'll likely try at least one more like this. It also stays together nicely even without being full of postcards, since the back is actually stitched together, which looks nice. A bit more trial and error and I should have it.

I like the map paper on the cover much better than the original leather. I also like stitching on the straps like this, I think it makes it look a bit like an old suitcase or something.

Spanish Tiles

This is the second of two custom postcard books I've been working on (the first was Love Letters). This one is Spanish themed. Since I was unlikely to wander into Paper Umbrella and find the perfect map of Spain, we decided to go for a a design inspired by the beautiful tiles of the area. The cover has raised designs copied from a tile I really loved. (Oh Google Images, where would I be without you?) This also served a secondary purpose - I put more detail into than I have before so that I could see how much would come through, in preparation for the cover of The Tell-Tale Heart. And was pleasantly surprised by the result! The small lines came out very well. I think it looks great with the brads and buckle too.

The person this for also loves Gaudi's fantastic architecture (so do I!), and he used a lot of tile mosaics in his buildings. So when I stamped/painted the back paper with Spanish designs I did a bunch of different designs rather than a series of identical ones. The colours, of course, are taken from popular ones of the area. I like the contrast of the yellow and blue. I was originally going to make the postcard corners/pockets out of the same paper, but I just couldn't get the stamps to look right, and didn't like the end result of the yellow paper instead. The silk I used to sew down the pockets alternates between the blue, green, and red of the back cover to keep the colour scheme going inside. It looks much MUCH better this way, and I like the contrasting yellow and blue from the top when it's closed. I think it fits better with the idea behind it then if it had all been the stamped paper. It's got plenty going on, but it's not messy and confusing.

Postcard Guestbook

At last! The postcard wedding guestbook I've been working on for the last week and a half. It's huge! I knew it was going to be big, but when it's there in real life all put together it's really huge. It got a bit unwieldy with the size and lightness because of the windows. I think once it's full of postcards it will be great, just like the last postcard book I made. Anyway. Lovely and romantic, I hope she likes it!

Work Smart Not Hard?

I'm working on a custom guestbook right now. It's going to be a really really neat book when it's done, but just right now I'm wondering what I've gotten myself into.

This is for a destination wedding, and instead of a traditional book the guest are going to be sending postcards back home. Cool, right? Well, I got a little carried away when I heard the idea and saw the photo this is based on, which simply used some string on a piece of paper. See every other post: making things a hundred times more complicated. So I said, ooooh, lets do photo corners instead, and a window so you can see both sides of the postcard! I wasn't thinking this quite all the way through, though, because that means handmaking photo corners, eight per postcard so they're on either side! argh!

I cut them out too big as well, first, so I had to recut all 352 when I was folding them. Yup... there must have been a better way of doing that. One thing did go very well, though. To get the window in the paper (I found a nice heavy printmaking paper that will support the postcards very well) I traced a template on the first page only, then used my awl and punched holes all the way through. Tranfered the pattern in minutes! Of course, I then realized it was too small because the photo corners had to sit outside the window, leaving a small mat around them so the postcard wasn't simply floating inside the opening. But that was minor. Still, next time I do one page start to finish so I know all the things I might encounter before I start the assembly line of all the little ingredients.

At the moment I'm at the stage of gluing all the photo corners on. I'm actually sewing binding thread through the outside corner as well because I find photo corners tend to lift, and since this book is supposed to last for a very long time I want them staying where I put them! The outside cover will be a lovely ivory bookcloth I have with a ribbon spine. I hope it looks as lovely and romantic as I think it will! And that it's finished in the next few days... stay tuned!

Postcard Potfolio

I've been trying to find ways to display paintings in the fantasy artist portfolio I will someday make myself when I came across this tutorial. I really liked how it looked when it's all done and it looks easy to add/remove/move pages while still displaying almost the entire page, plus the back-to-back display means you don't have to see the blank back of the sheet of paper. But I didn't like the folded look, that the corners could still flip up, or that the back stayed very tight together.


So instead of acheiving this with origami I made the elements seperately and sewed/glued it all in place. The corners that hold the postcards are sewn in the centre so everything stays in place very very well. I wasn't 100% on how it would look with the back of the accordian fold not held together in some way, without the postcards in it it bulged out too much and had no shape, but now that it's done it fans out so beautifully to display everything that I'm really really pleased. Experiment succesful! This will be perfect for my portfolio.