I think that there is nothing better in this world than spending a relaxing Sunday in the studio.

Today we took a nice walk to the beach, about a mile each way, ran the dog on the beach, walked home stopping at Atomic Café to drink lattes and munch on bagels. I’ll pass on the bag next time and definitely get the latte. I took a long nap a then hit the studio.

I decided to play around with some perfect binding. I cored a box of about 1000 sheets of 8.5×14 inch paper, cover weight probably 70 lb or so. Its stiff and nice, but printed in green on one side with information about olive oil. I cut it down to 4.25×5.5 sheets stacked them and cut kerfs into the edge (I’ll have to look in the book binding term for this, for now I’ll use the wood working term) spread glue all over and then threaded in a piece of thread, glued it again and let it dry. After letting the whole stack dry I measured out the block height (1/2 inch) and cut the glue and the thread. I added a bookmark and a spice reinforcement strip and then glued on the covers. I had planned on using signs I snagged from the store, only to realize at the last minute that I had cut them for regular moleskine size and that I needed to cut n covers. I decided to use a different set of signs that were also recycled from the store- a vinyl coated sign that is printed huge so when I cut a moleskine sized chunk out of it its all blurry and interesting looking.

I’m interested in seeing how this little experiment holds up. I plan on giving them as gifts to people at work. I’ll be making a few more before I sell any.

In addition to the recycled books I made I also cut, folded and punched stations for about a dozen hedgehogs. I’ll be cutting covers tomorrow after work and I think I’ll be able to get the majority of them sewn tomorrow. I hope to get a bunch of them glued up tomorrow too.

IT makes me super happy to walk into my studio and think #1 Its mine #2 I can set it up and move it around however I want. Know that I can leave a project set up on my bench is great too. Just having a spot specifically for everything is great too.