Yesterday was a sort of productive day. I did much of the hosue work I have been meaning to do and got a lot of binding work done. The heat has been brutal and hasn’t really made me want to make books. It’s made me want to spend lots of time in my air-conditioned bedroom.

All in all I’m pretty happy with my progress yesterday. I finished half of the pastor’s order- 8 of the 15 journals and will start working on the final 7 as soon as the leather comes in. I’m hoping to get them done by the end of this week or the start of next. It will all be possible if the leather comes in today. If it doesn’t arrive then I’m working on the eBay/2nd order line.

I have a large special order for around 25 journals of the eBay line. I’m breaking that order up into manageable chunks of 8 or so journals. Shipping on that order is going to be a beast. I just weighed a eBay line journal and it’s a half pound- meaning I can only get 4 or 5 of them into a priority mailer. Weight-wise, unless I go media mail it’s actually the cheapest way to go.

I headed to staples to get some much-needed supplies and to see what they carried for paper. I ended up getting catalog enveloped cheap. Since O go through so many I figured I’d jump on that. I also bought a magnetic organizer- very visual and something I’ve been thinking about for a while now. I also bought 3 reams of Wausau 24lb paper. I decided last night I’d use it in all the journals for the 25 custom orders- it’s a great warm ivory color- the color of heavy cream. It’s quite nice in that respect but I’m n ot in love with the paper. When I open a box of Strathmore or Fox River I’m in love with it. The texture of the paper is simply terrific, but this is not quite the same. Don’t get me wrong it’s very nice paper but I just didn’t understand why everyone on the AJ list raves about it. It’s just not Fox River.

I always get a bunch of stuff I don’t need when I’m at staples. I also bought pens and a soda.

In actual binding related news, I worked on making covers yesterday. I cut 7 small sized and 2 large sized. I actually finished reinforcing and backing 6 of the 7 small covers and both the large covers. Today I’ll start laying out the spines and punching the stations. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to blow through a good amount of sewing. I plan on cutting at least one large cover from every hide I get. Speaking of which, I already need to order more leather. I’m blowing through it like crazy!