I’ve been working on the recycled journals again. Below I’ve got 4 that I’ve finished. I made the covers ages ago.

Recently I’ve been having to work insane amounts at work and the only things I’ve been able to really work on without thinking have been these recycled books. I picked some of my favorite single section sewings and did them 4 times across the spines. I also picked a 2-section sewing and doubled it. It made for a nice spine.

I used unbleached natural hemp for all of the sewings.

The spines are leather form my scrap heap, picked for their size and interesting edges. I glued and clamped these to the stiff chipboard.

Anyway, check them out below:

I’ve been working on these books for quite some time. I think that because of all the time I spent they came out better than if I had just done them. I stayed with one of my initial ideas and ditched a few of the others. One of the ideas that I ditched was using the identical straps I used on the other renaissance journal I made. Instead I took one of the straps and split it down the middle changing it a little. Before I did any of this I picked out 2 covers, one distressed sheepskin and one lightly distressed chocolate brown deerskin. I then picked straps to match the covers. I glued them down and clamped them down for a night.

I toyed with several different stitching patterns to hold the straps to the covers. I knew that the glue would hold them well but I needed a little more security to know that they would stay there forever. So I picked a combination of two stitches, an upright and an X pattern. I like how tough it is and how simple it is.

For the stitching on the spine I knew I wanted a simple long stitch but with some linking. So I broke it up and did each journal with the same pattern but different linking on each book. This way they are related but different.

Each journal has 200 strathmore 24lb, 25% cotton pages in cream color. I used natural unbleached Irish linen to sew it and the inner paper is Thai marbled paper in blue and gold.

These were a custom order so they aren’t for sale.

Anyone who knows me in person knows that I love good joke, the more clever the better. I even enjoy being the butt of good intelligent joke. While I’m not sure this classifies as intelligent it surely made me laugh and made my coworkers laugh.

One of my coworkers is very into enforcing the rules. I applaud him for this, I really do, but I more often than not see him with a copy of the General Information Guide than I do any other member of the leadership team. Of course I had to tease him a little about this. I referred to the “GIG” as his bible and this set a series of humor light bulbs off in my head like flash bulbs. Initially I thought to myself “how funny would he look if the GIG looked like a bible?”. That would be pretty funny. Then I thought, I should rebind a copy of the GIG and give it to him. Black leather… At this point I giggled to myself and decided that it d to be done. At this point I had to share my idea with a coworker, she of course found the idea just as funny as I did. I told her that I wished I’d bought the hot foil-stamping machine I’d seen on ebay so that I could emboss “Holy Bible” on the cover. I realized that wasn’t half as funny (not to mention completely sacrilegious.) as it would be f I embossed “Holy GIG” on the cover.

So last night I came home and headed for the studio and put some recycled end sheets on the book, a hinge, book mark and then finally a black leather cover. I stamped the words on the cover and let it sit in the clamps over night. (I can’t wait until I get my book press!)

So please don’t be offended by the following pictures, it’s all in good fun and I’m pretty sure my coworker will love it.

The details:
It’s an 8×8 inch book one-quarter inch thick with a glue binding. The original covers, now the title page and end page are 110lb card stock. The end sheets are recycled from the same material that I made the meat notebooks from. The hinge is made from 24lb paper. The bookmark is a rawhide shoelace. It’s bound in the same manner as a hedgehog. No glue on the spine (hollow/loose spine) and end sheets glued to the cover. In the back end pages I’ve hidden a clear plastic pocket and some post it tabs. It’s a simple fast and dirty way to add a leather cover to just about anything. If I were to do this again I would spend a little more time to sand away some of the inked paper on the spine so that the glue would adhere a little better. I’m afraid that the glue will give up due the plastic-y nature of the end sheets and the water resistant cover of the GIG. The over all effect was not to make a working long lasting book but a visual impact and from the reaction of my coworkers I think it worked.

If anyone would like this done to thr workplace’s “rule” book I’d be happy to do itfor you. Price would depend on the size of the book. One the size of this wold cost about $20.

I’ve spent a little time over the last few nights writing up possible lesson plans for possible classes so that I can loose out my remaining few hours to places that could possibly take me on as a teacher of sorts.

My goals for the rest of the week:
Complete 2 similar Renaissance styled journals
Complete a stack of hedgehogs
Complete the olive journal
Work on ideas for the red journal

That’s a lot of work for the next few days but I’m pretty sure I can start to work on it and get some of it accomplished. Tomorrow of all happiness I get out early- 1:30ish. I’ll be able to take the laptop with me so that I can work in the café. I also get out early Friday!!!! This is the week of no hours.

I’m very excited right now! If you head to the etsy homepage, you will see one of my journals as one of the featured items! It’s
HERE!!!! How freaking cool is that!?!

OKay, so I had intended to update yesterday in the AM, but tiredness and the DayJob got in the way of that, so here’s the picture with the hint.
I’ve removed the picture because I’ve had several correct answers and I’ll be trying this out again, with different prizes.

I’ve been scoring big time at work lately; a coworker has been hooking me up with the giant window posters that are a heavy duty paper coated in vinyl. ONe side is pristine white and the other has a printed image. The printed image side is the side I think that is the most intersting. My only issue with the posters is that they are covered in stupid logos. So I’m thinking of creative ways to use those but not have it look like what I’m making is a product from the company. For right now I’m simply hacking those parts off and cutting the chunks of poster that I like.

The 2 posters that I’ve got right now had large chunks of roast beef on them, since the coworker has been so cool to give me the posters I decided I was going to make him a “meat” sketch book. I cut out a prime cut of the roast beef (c’mon i had to go there.) and folded it over and wrapped it around a stack of essentially trash paper. I’ve been going through the recycle bin to snag anything with any blanks sides- misprint fliers, unused fliers and other assorted blank on one side papers. They work great for this style of notebooks/journal; because it doesn’t lay flat.

I didn’t take any shots of the books I gave my coworkers but here’s a few shots of smaller books made ofthe scraps from the meat photo. It’s the same idea.

Here’s a little contest for people:
Can anyone, who doesn’t know me in real life or work with me recognize what retail establishment employees me?

If no one answers by the time I wake up I’ll post a photo with a give away clue.

The first person to email me (not post a comment here) with the correct answer will receive a set of 3 matchbook notebooks- a combination of meat and special sign covers.

So these are my latest adventure in alternative bindings using unusual materials. These are all recycled- using signs from a grocery store that have been laminated, special signs, regular signs, anything that was laminated I chopped up into 3 inch by 11 inch pieces. I then used (purchased for the purpose) a large heavy duty stapler (heehheheh laughter of glee- office supplies!!!) to staple in about a hundred sheets of recycled paper.

Things I like about these- it’s a really adaptable way of making a cover. If I have scraps of drawing paper or any paper i can stack it and wrap one of these covers around it. i can hide a cardboard piece in the back making it sturdyier than one might think. It’s fast. I was able to figure this out from looking at a picture on etsy and adapt the size of my text/paper block to the size of my available cover size. I was also able to make these with a huge assortment of recycled materials. (more on that later.)

I’ve been pretty busy in the studio the last few days, which explains my lack of posting. I‘ve had several special orders in which I’ve finished and mailed out.

I’ve been having a few experiments with patterns on the spines of the books; I’m trying to think of them as cross-stitching or as needlepoint. It’s an interesting experiment, because I’m limited to a top to bottom arrangement and angles. I’m going to continue to play with it but I’ve had some very interesting results so far. Some of them are listed below. Some are simply the recent custom orders I’ve been working on.
This is simply a simple 200 page, 10 signature, black thread on golden deer hide with linking.

This is the first of my experimenting with the cross stitchor crewl work style of sewing. It’s 200 pages and 10 signatures, natural thread, you can see int eh center where I skipped stations on some of the signatures. i think it adds a lot of dimension tot eh spine.

This is also some of the patterning along the spine. All I did here was to change where I placed that stations.

This is perhaps one of the most intricate designs I’ve sewn thus far, the aditional stations in the center added a ton of time to the sewing process, not to mention tht it’s a fat 400 page journal in the 6×9 inch size. It took over an hour of timeto sew. It’s listed on etsy here.

Ah pink. While I don’t personally like pink many do, and here is another pink journal. It’s a copy of the scarlett journal, per the request of a customer.

I’ve been working on some 400page journals. They pose certain issues that don’t come up in other sizes of journal. The spine is much thicker than in other journals and the number of pages and signatures forced me into a funny set of stations across the spine. I’m usually very happy with an odd number of stations. The number of signatures, 20, forces me to use an even number. It being a square number (see kids Math IS important!) I can’t get it to work in an odd way. I need to play with this style and see what I like and don’t like. This may be the perfect number of pages to work with slots and angles.

The first 400 Page journal is listed here on eBay and I’ll have another up on etsy this afternoon.