Today is gorgeous and sunny. I’ll be spending plenty of time soaking up those rays but in the rest of the day I have a lot of work to do. I made up 8 covers last night and cut the spines this morning. I spent a good part of the morning folding the pages into signatures and gathering them for sewing. This afternoon will be spent sewing many of them.

Sadly I have to ruin my day off by going into work and working on a special order. Things like that tend to ruin great plans. Not that I mind so much the special order but that I have to go in on my day off and make them.

Things have been going well. The custom orders have tapered off a bit but eBay has been going well for me. I think that I found my buy-it-now price, it’s not as high as I would like, but it keeps me in supplies and with a small profit margin, meaning I get paid about $5 an hour for my efforts, if that.

Later today I’m going to cut some black and distressed covers for eBay sales. Right now all I’ve got is this chocolate sheep hide, golden deer hide and blue cow hide. I’d like to get the distressed back up. They are a consistent sale and a good look. I think it would be nice to have 4 to 6 different styles up on eBay at any one time, that way I can maximize my sales potential. Thought I can’t really say that it will help. I’m never sure with these things.

I have to run to the post office and put out a package for Australia.

Okay, I’ve decided to list the small pink journal on eBay, BigBlue has gone to my web page. I can’t bear to part with big blue for less than it’s actually worth.

So LittlePink is listed HERE

Check it out!

BigBlue is listed on my website HERE!

I am more than a little excited about his journal that I just made for Scarlett. It was perhaps the biggest challenge that I’ve set myself up for in a long time and I see that my long dormant binding skills are surfacing and succeeding in looking good.

I need to make sure that I get a lot of pictures of this journal before I mail it out because it is one of my better journals.

I like the technique so much that I’m making a bunch of covers with the pink hide- all distressed but with different colors. I’ve got another going I the pink I used originally. I’m working on ideas in my head to use blues and purples. I saw a bunch of paste paper covers today and I was wondering what the hides would look like if I ladled on paint and medium mixed with water and then sandwiched it together, or used some plexi to smoosh the paint into the leather. I’m going to try it and we’ll see how it looks.

We’ve got a nasty storm hitting us right now and I’m gonna turn off the compy so I don’t fry this one.

The custom journal for Scarlet is 95% done. I have finished distressing the covers, working on the spine and I’ve sewn it. I’ve also scalloped the edge of the flap and added the thong to tie it shut. I’m pretty darn happy with it. My roommate referred to it as girly. I think that’s compliment.

Sometimes it’s good to challenge one’s self with a project that is just a little outside of one’s style, and I think that this project was just that. Let’s face it, I don’t do pink and this project was bathed in it. My style is somewhat masculine and tough so to do a girly journal was difficult. Now that I’ve done it I’m pretty happy with the results and may do some more. I think that I may try to work them a little differently.

A review of the key points of this journal:

Feminize my style a bit

Pink- Hand distressed

1 and half inches thick, with 250 pages

LINES!

And what did I learn:

I can make my style more feminine- color is a good way to work it but also there are little touches that make thins more “girly”

Hand distressing, while time consuming, is not expensive but makes great results and is wonderful looking. I could order white leather and hand distress it using paint. ANY COLOR!

250 pages is nothing I could have easily made this 300 pages

Lines are easy.

Next paycheck from the day job I’m going to purchase several white hides, that way I can distress them to any color I need. I’m so jazzed by my success with this project that I think I can try it on a white hide. Acrylic paint and sponges are my friend.