I’ve been working on a big order. 90 of my jotter notebooks for a wedding*. Luckily for me I managed to snag a massive stack of posters to recycle shortly before receiving the order. I got some good posters too, with interesting graphics.

I’ve been holding off on stitching up the second half of the books though because our dog, Ruby, HATES the sewing machine and I’ve been thinking that it might just be too traumatic for her to have the new dog and me sewing…

But I’ve been cutting and trimming like crazy the last few nights. I had stitched enough for 100 books. Thus far after trimming and cutting about 2/3rds of the stack I’ve only got 50 books. I’ve got a stack of 20 rejects- loose or bad stitching or bad cutting. I’ll be listing reject value packs on etsy when I’m all done with the order.

*I used to work in the flower business and no matter what I did I always ended up with wedding business. In flowers brides are often difficult and I always hated doing wedding flowers. The issue, I was really good at it and word got out around town that my prices were fair and that I did a great job. In the entire time of doing wedding flowers I had only 1 bride freak out, and it was determined by everyone involved that she and her crazy sister were looking for free flowers. That one instance sticks out in my mind and still bothers me. I’m so glad that I don’t work with flowers anymore. Not to mention that when you work with flowers you really ruin the romantic gestures of flowers for yourself. Getting flowers never seems to have that feeling it once did.

Suzi has you start with flowers, but don’t stop there. Ther is a lot more going on in this video than just flowers.

Let me tell you about the new addition to our family, BJ. A little 10
pound mutt we adopted from the Salem shelter. He’s ugly as hell but in
the way that makes him cute. He’s a mix of affenpincher and shitzu or
something. He’s got a naturally occurring Mohawk, funny ears and a
scratchy coat.He’s got a lovable personality, in that he’s playful when
you want him to be and wants to sleep in your lap the rest of the time.
He’s agile and can jump extraordinarily high, which means that in the
car he ends up in the back window and in the house on the back of the
couch.

He’s attentive to what’s happening outside and while on
the back of the couch he looks out the window and growls at people
walking by the house.

He and our other dog Ruby are still
sorting things out as to who is the alpha dog. Ruby isn’t very playful
and BJ is so we’ll see how things are going to go with them. Over the
next week or so we’re going to keep them separated during the day. We
still don’t trust the new guy in the whole house, he’s had a few
accidents and we’d like to avoid any on the couches.

A few
things that we know about him, he belonged to a woman who adopted him
from the same shelter we did but 2 years ago, she started to work 16
hour days and he started to be home with the boyfriend, who wanted
nothing to do with him. So the little dog started to have a lot of
accidents and the boyfriend started to stomp at him a lot. There is a
question as to whether or not the boyfriend was also kicking him. I
don’t see any signs of that, no wincing or startling at fast movements.
Loud noises do bother him a bit but not a lot.

The dog has no
training at all, for instance he doesn’t know sit. HE doesn’t walk
well, and if he’s allowed out the door without a leash he runs for, you
guessed it, the street. We worked on sit tonight and the poor little
guy is so unaccustomed to attention that he was twitchy the entire
time. It’s going to take weeks to train this dog some basic skills and
get him used to being outdoors on the run.

It’s going to be an interesting adventure.

Oh
yeah can we talk about this dog’s name? Who in their right mind names
their dog BJ? Seriously it just invites bad jokes. We’ve decided that
he looks like an ewok (starwars) and that we’re changing his name to
Wickett. It’s far less embarrassing to be labeled a StarWars geek than
to have a dog named after fellatio.

I’ve been wanting to write about this for a few days now but I wanted to make sure that I was coherent in how I wrote it. I came up with a name for my little notebooks, Jotters. I’ve considered it something like a brand name. I came up with it, it’s mine. Recently when cruising etsy looking at what other binders were making, I typed in Jotter, to see what I got, and lo and behold I didn’t get just my books, I got a ton of other books. There were 2 sellers in particular that were selling their books as jotter notebooks. Their books were in fact very similar to mine, but obviously they were not my notebooks.

My first thought was to send out an angry cease and desist letter. Then I thought a nicely worded cease and desist letter would work letter. Then I considered doing what I did when a seller on eBay started to use my exact format for selling her books, and ignore it to a point while putting into my description "The Original Jotter Notebook."

I guess I wouldn’t mind if in their description they had written "modeled after the jotter notebooks made my Leslie HErger/COnforableShoesStudio.com" or given me the credit somewhere. Instead the binders just used my hard work to come up with a "brand"name for my books and are using it to sell their notebooks.

What would you do as a bookbinder if you came up with a name for one of your books, a brand name if you will, and another artesian started to use it? Without permission and without giving you credit?

I posted this a couple of places and the response was interesting on one source, it was pointed out to me that jotter is actually in the dictionary as a word for notebook. This is true but it’s also not quite an archaic term and no one used it until I popularized it on several forums online. (just thought I’d point that out.) Another person pointed out that my notebooks are not that original and that the solution was to be more creative. While I’m aware that these particular notebooks/jotters aren’t the most creative line of my books that wasn’t the point in my question, the point being that several sellers are using the name I chose to use for my line of books.

And yes I have looked into copyright and trademark, both are very expensive so I guess unless I’m willing to shell out $350 for the trademark and more for the copyright I’m stuck. I think it’s just rude to co-opt someone else’s hard work. This goes inline with a recent discussion on the handmade book forum about infringement and how many people think if it’s online it’ must be okay to use (AKA steal). I guess a lot of these people who haven’t been online for years and working hard and just taking other people’s ideas and hard work don’t see the harm that it does. It must be okay to steal some one else’s idea if it furthers your work.(please note my bitter sarcasm.) 

Good News Good News Good News!
#1. I’m feeling so much better. I’m able to sit up for extended periods of time and I’m down to a single nap a day. Yay!
#2. Sewing cradles are BACK! I’ve recruited my Dad to make them instead of my brother. Dad is a little older and a lot more responsible than my brother so you can expect that they will ship within a day or 2 of your order.  They will be shipped from Jonesboro, ME via priority mail. Very exciting. You can get them here!

So the really great news is that I’m back to making books, I have energy and I’m not wiped out anymore. Who knew the flu was so bad? I haven’t been so sick since I was a little kid. I’ve been in a frenzy of making jotters the last few days. I scored a ton of great posters from work right before I was sick and I chopped them all down to jotter size, so I’ve got a ton of covers. I had listed something like 9 sets of books before I was sick and I just finished another 9 sets, this time with graph paper and sketchbook paper filling them up. I’m pretty happy with how they turned out. I’ll be listing them across this coming week.

Check out the website of this artist and check out his Youtube videos… Very nice.

Normally I work on the content for the blog on my weekends when I have time off from my DayJob. This weekend, I had big things planned, some photos, a new video and some links to other blogs. But, I’ve been sick. Not like run down blowig nose sick, but fever of 103, a trip to the ER and medication sick.

I have…..
Drumroll please…..
The flu.

Yeah. Holy &*^^&%%#$$#@ Sh!T this stuff sucks. I’m never that sick. I haven’t had a fever since I was in high school, and I’ve only had a bad enough cold to have missed work a couple of times, but this me, let me tell you, is completely kicking my ass. Usual course of my cold: Feel minorly sick for a day, treat it with Vitamin C etc…, Come home for weekend, sleep, and then get up Sunday and feel sniffly but otherwise okay and back to work on Monday.

This time, feel sick on Thursday, treat it with Vit C, Go to work Friday feel like ass, Get sent home early by boss, come home and promptly fall asleep on couch. Feel feverish, sweating and alternating with chills. Head to Walgreens, pick up $80 in OTC medication (thank god for the bene card), go home, take OTC meds. Pass out again. C gets home, packs me off to bed. C’s Dad comes to visit next AM. I am still asleep. I think I’ve been to the bathroom a couple of times but I can’t be sure. I awake at noon. (let that sink in- NOON. I’m normally up by 8 or 9 on weekends.) I wander about the house, and then lay down on the couch where I pass out again.

At this point I’m aware I have a temperature, so I grab the thermometer out of the cabinet. It tastes funny and won’t read my temp. I think I’m on crack, but thank god it’s mercury free; the bulb is broken. So I pass out again. C comes home, feels my head and is convinced I have a fever, I say I’m fine and she goes out to purchase a thermometer. C knows the way to my heart and buys a digital one- a sure way to get me to use anything I don’t want is to make it a gadget. I use it. First reading 103.6, no wonder I’m flushed and I feel like butt. Between bouts of being passed out and sort of conciousness I take my temp (see gadgetry works) and it hovers between 101.6 and 103 all evening.

The next day C goes to work, I stay asleep until, again noon, at which point I’m feeling better, still sniffly but not feverish. I take my temp- 99.2 when I take it again a few hours later i’m in the normal range. I’m still hacking and sniffling but over all a lot better. I know I’m not making the party I’m supposed to go to that night but at least I’m not sweating anymore.

Only wait, 3pm rolls around and I feel cold and the sweating starts up again. Fevers back. It hovers around 100 and 101 for a few hours I let C rest for a bit then I wake her and tell her were going to the ER. After an hour and a half we leave, having been diagnosed with the flu, given a back up script of antibiotics, told to use afrin and tylenol. I ask for a note for Monday, DR looks at me funny and says,"Just one day?" I reply sure, I’ll be fine. He kind of smiles and walks off. Clearly he knew something I didn’t, here it is Tuesday AM and I still feel like hammered dog butt. I had planned on making it in to work but it ain’t going to happen. So now I’m waiting to call my boss and inform her of my status.

So after that involved story you now know why I haven’t updated anything on this blog, added any new books, made anything new or done anything, I’ve been passed out on my couch for, well, 3 days. I’ve been telling myself that my immune system has been given a hearty work out and that the next bug that comes around will have it’s ass kicked like Tito Ortiz in the ring with Chuck Lidell. Right after I wake up from my next nap.

(On the plus side if there is one, I caught up on 2 seasons of No Reservations; saw many episodes of  Law & Order and 2 season’s of another show that is escaping me now.)