These jotters are 98% recycled. These covers are from advertising posters that hang inside a store. The paper is a very heavy stiff cardstock, probably 110lb printed on and then laminated on each side with a thin coat of vinyl. This makes the covers stiff and strong.

I then stack 10 sheets of 24lb recycled paper, neehan paper, of white and speckled in color a very pale tan. A good sturdy paper, that has been printed on in green ink to have a light band of green and some text and a logo. I was able to trim the logo off but the text remains, it says “Team Member Favorites.”

This set of Jotters have the words from the ads as the covers. As such this can never be reproduced. Each one is individual. I think that the letters make interesting and abstract images. I made a huge stack of these for myself. I also made a lot of these for etsy. You can find them here on my etsy page!

I had a request for Jotters in a variety of colors. Canson makes their mein-teintes paper in 8.5x11in size, perfect for making jotters. On my way home on Friday I stopped at Charette and bought up a variety of colors, yellows and blues. They have a lot of great colors and I looked online and in some catalogs they carry a mixed color pack that I may have to pick up some time.

I had gone to my local crafts store and bought a package of “card stock” paper for scrap booking. I’m not sure whats going on out there in the scrap booking world but this paper was not cardstock, it was slightly heavy than regular paper, it was probably a 65lb paper rather than a 90lb paper I usually associate with cardstock. It’s more cover weight paper for reports. Well it’s just this side of useless for my needs. So it will end up as end sheets for hedgehogs and perhaps the pages of some hedgies.

Anyway, rant over, the canson paper was perfect. A nice texture and weight for my covers. I stacked Southworth linen textured 25% cotton, 24lb paper in ivory color wiht the canson and stitched it with the ecru and white thread combination. I dare say the off white thread looks good with all colors of paper, kind of the way Khaki pants look good with most colors of shirts.

I forgot to add these are also small cahier sized- 3.5×5.5 inches, and no pocket in the back.

These little jotters are for the magpies out there!

For these I used acid free scrapbooking paper, in a nice textured variety that was too thin to be used as a cover on it’s own so I laminated it to a stiff black cardstock. I let the covers dry for a few days under weights and then stacked the covers with ivory granite Southworth paper. I ran the stack through my sewing machine. I used heavy quilting cotton poly blend thread in ecru and white thread inside.

Each stack made 2 notebooks.

After pulling them off the sewing machine I folded the pages and cover, and then trimmed the fore- edges and head and tail. It was quite a process. Each stack made 2 books. These took a little extra work in comparison to the other jotters I make but I think they turned out quite well. So Shiney and pretty.

They each have 60 pages and are 3.5X5.5 inches. I didn’t round my corners.

The green jotter above is on eBay here.

The above JOtter and the one below are on etsy here.

My brother has been hard at work making book presses again. He’s got 2 done, and they are very nice. I’ve actually been able to physically handle them and stress test them this time. And I must say they are eve nicer than the one he made me! I particularly like the simple oil finish on these.

The press bed measures 8×11 and delivers enormous even pressure across the entire surface. The press will hold a 7-inch stack of books. Allen (my brother) has reinforced these presses with steel rod along the sides. This allows for more pressure from wood than is normal. All the guts are hidden away inside the wood so all you see is beautiful Maine grown wood. All the pieces are sanded smooth for a beautiful finish and a superior feel in your hands. He’s built this thing to last a lifetime of use.

It’s listed on ebay here!

I’m toying with the idea of getting a paper guillotine, well it’s a pretty well formed thought at this point. But it’s a HUGE investment, a $300 piece of equipment, if bought on eBay. I might hold off a bit but I’m probably going to buy one soon.

Anyone have any recommendations about brands and size. I’m thinking all I’ll need is a 12 inch that cuts up to 300 sheets. With that I’ll be able to trim most of my books and cut stacks of paper into perfect little pieces. But what gets me is the shear volume of

These little recycled notebooks are 85 to 95 pages. Filled with paper printed on one side that was rescued from the recycle bin at my job. I figured to reuse before recycling would be better. So I took the ream or 2. The covers are made from signs that I also rescued. AS such no two are exactly alike.

I’m pretty happy with how these turned out. The signs are always a little different and never work exactly the same.

Some are listed on my etsy account and one is on ebay here.

The one thing that I did that was different than other hedgies was that on the blue leather hedgie I left a envelope style flap and strap like my other journals. It will allow for maximum expansion and yet contain everything one might shove into it. It’s on etsy here.

This hedgie has the same paper as all the others and is listed on etsy here.

I loaded the following hedgie up to eBay today. It’s a little different than my usual because it’s made with Stonehenge paper, 140lb 100% cotton, and acid free. In terms of drawing it’s one of my favorites. I got hooked on it in drawing 1 in college. It was a required paper for that class and I hated that I had to buy expensive paper for work that I knew I wouldn’t save. I no longer have any of the work from that class but the one thing I’m left with is an appreciation of nice paper.

These books are a gift for the coworker who took enough time out of her busy schedule to rain me for the position that I now have. Needless to say I’m pretty grateful about her spending the time to train me thoroughly without that training I don’t think I would have gotten the job.

I made the gift bag from a sign I scrounged from the recycling bin at work. The covers of these recycled notebooks are also made from the same sign. The inner paper is a heavy weight 28 or 32lb paper with some nice flecks in it.

These signs are MUCH stiffer than the signs I had before. They are made to be viewed from a distance so they look out of focus on the screen but I assure you- they aren’t.

I also found that when I cut these signs up that they can lead to some very. . . interesting imagery. And I may have to make a series of books based on this imagery, because it can be found on all the signs. An explanation, because these signs are big and they have pictures of people on them they have the normal folds and wrinkles associated with facial features. When I cut the face section out to utilize the guy’s smile and eyes, it left a section of his neck, and the fold where his chin met his neck. That fold when cut down to book size looked just like, well a shaved part of the female anatomy. For whatever reason I find this absolutely hilarious. So I may make a groups of “adult” get your mind out of the gutter books even though they aren’t really those parts of the body. The images remind me of the email/spam that went around a few years back of pictures just like that. Little sections of pictures taken out of context.

Just 12 hours left on the journal pictured below. You can see it here.

Also I was able to do a little work in the studio the other day so I have a few hedgehogs and I’m working on some recycled journals to list on etsy. I’ll take some pictures of those later today and get them up quickly.

I am highly amused by this story:
Work Journaler

For many reasons, I think the main reason being that she went after unemployment and secondly that she was dumb enough to save it all on the work computer.

As someone who is a budding technology professional I can tell you that in terms of work computers someone is ALWAYS watching and everything you do on a work computer is always accessible to someone above you. It’s all very big brother but typically if your company owns the computer they can look at anything on it, nothing is private. And most company policies follow that rule.