MY friend asked me to make her a custom recycled journal to give as a gift, so I did. The cover is made of a recycled advertising sign with pockets stitched into it for support and storage. Inside are 240 pages of Wausau 30% post consumer waste recycled paper with 25% cotton and it's a nice 24lb paper. It's a natural color with green lines for writing.

I stitched it up with heavy hemp thread, lightly waxed for ease of use. The stitching is simply a linked long stitch. I really like how the hemp looks against the cover.

REcycled Sign Journal Stack
Originally uploaded by lessherger

Not a great pic of these journals but it gives you an idea. I’ve been working on these all week. Monday I stitched the covers. tuesday I punched the holes and folded the paper. Wednesday I trimmed the paper. and The rest of the week I stitched them all together. this sort of piece work makes these seem to go really fast.

Most of these are on my ArtFire Shop here.

large sized jotters all of them
Originally uploaded by lessherger

It's been a long weekend here in my studio. I started churning out books on Friday and here it is sunday and I'm listing a bunch of them. I've been stitching up books while I watch TV too. SO I've gotten a massive amountof books made this week. This stack of large jotters is just one example.

I happened onto some log books that were being tossed into the recycle bin at work. I pulled them out and they were covered int eh most gorgeous stiff red coated coverstock. Super thick and printed with a leather like pattern. I reversed them and put the printed side inside and the flat side on the outside of the books. the cardstock is super thick. I can't wait to use one. I made a mistake on one and get to keep it. 🙂 Anyway these are listed on my ArtFire shop here.

Last night on my way home form work I was tempted to stop at Charette, the art superstore. As I went to merge into the right lane, I remembered it had gone out of business and I was hit with a moment of sadness.

I have to wonder how long before  all we have left as artists and crafts people to purchase supplies from are large big box art and craft stores or online retailers?

I want to shop for supplies as I create, small and handmade. Charette may have been a larger retailer but it was Mass based (right out of Woburn where the superstore was) and I felt good about going there. The older guy. Arthur knew my name and knew I always came in looking for watercolor and pringtmaking paper and that I shopped the clearance area for paper pretty heavily.

Right now, just thinking about never beiong able to walk in and buy some great HMP I'm pretty sad.

This blog's posts are interviews with artists about the tools they use. Some really great entries have been up recently. Check it out here.

ghosts of nights dreams of day
Originally uploaded by andrea joseph's illustrations

I love Andrea Joseph's work on flickr.

I've decided that I'm not going to give up my Etsy shop after all. I figure that the exposure is better if I have both shops running rather than just one. I'm going to "divide them." I've not decided which site will get which items but one site will get all the leather and handmade paper covered journals the other will get all recycled.

I'm thinking of going with Artfire with the recycled and etsy with the leather. My partner informs me that if I crunch the numbers that doesn't make sense fiscally. In that I'll end up paying more money to etsy by percentage where I need the higher dollar sales to go through artfire to pay for the monthly fee. Not to mention the higher the dollar sale the more money comes out of the item. Technically C is right. But when looking at the design of the 2 sites it LOOKS right and while I know mentally thats not the best way to go about it, it's what my head is telling me to do…

mc_etsy
Originally uploaded by Rymann

Check out his little baby on etsy

Pretty neat self published booklet/zine.