I got a lot done today. All paper and covers for custom orders are finished. Tomorrow I will work on spine designs and in the next few days cut them all and begin sewing.

I also made a stack of books for eBay and etsy. 3 large sized books and 8 smaller. I did several with 100% cotton paper. It’s very nice paper. It’s better than the 25% cotton but not as decadent as I had thought. I’ll be working on those as time allows. I won’t have much time over the next week or so but I will be working on them.

I’ll also be working on my application. I’m planning on writing everything out and then printing it in books form as well as typical application form.

Like a freaking half-wit I crowded my workspace and thus burnt myself on the iron. I have a sizeable burn on the back of my right hand, which I’m sure will not be happy tomorrow at work.

I’ve done more work today that one might expect. I cut a stack of covers last night, including all the covers for custom orders. I’ve backed all of them and I’m getting ready to trim everything. I’ve also managed to go tot eh post office and got myself a coffee. I’m pretty happy with the amount of work I’ve gotten finished. I’ll be even happier when I finish trimming everything.

Later tonight I’ll cut pages for everything.

One of the items that I haven’t written about that seriously concerns the studio and it’s function as not only my space but as an entity is Grad School. My plan is to apply for next fall. What this means for my DayJob is not yet determined. I know that I can’t afford to leave and go to school full time unless I get some serious grant monies and things with the studio continue to accelerate as they have over the last 6 months. My friend pointed out to me that if I’m studying binding I can use custom orders to fulfill class work and that all class work that I create can go towards sales. While this is true to get into grad school and the school of my choice I need to seriously get going on slides. For me to get going on slides will require me to make a few books that are not for special orders and are not sold before I even make them.

However I know that the DayJob will not allow for me to go to school and work fulltime or even part-time in my current capacity so that means a pay cut at the DayJob. It may end up that they don’t even allow me to work due to “outside interests.” I’ve heard it held against people before and I’m not willing to let my “outside interests” to not become the focus of my life.

So if anyone out there knows of a place where I can score some cash for school email me through the page here, I’d really appreciate it. If anyone would really like to support my heading back to school, buy a book from etsy.com, eBay or commission a custom journal.

I left the DayJob early due to the fact I was supposed to leave early on Monday but forgot so I had to make it up somewhere. Happily it was slow enough that I could take off 2 hours early today. I had planned on heading to AC Moore but didn’t want to drive that far out of my way so instead on a spur of the moment idea I headed south on 95 and headed to Charrette in Woburn. Here I found stacks of good stuff in clearance mainly paper. I have been buying large amounts of the clearance Strathmore charcoal paper all along but today I hit the mother load, they have put eh entire display rack on clearance. I came in when they had been pretty picked over but I still managed to find $50 in clearance paper. It is just less than 100 sheets of really nice paper. I didn’t find my usual earthy toned paper or any in cream but I did find a variety of nice warm grays. I thought about buying some pink sheets but they just weren’t in my style.

I came home and found that my leather had been delivered today and it’s much nicer than his description. It’s a beautiful deep marigold yellow orange. It’s fantastic.

I’m still looking for good oatmeal colored paper. I’m pretty sure that I like the fawn gray Stonehenge. It may require that I head deeper into Boston tomorrow than my meeting requires. It may also require that I end up hitting rush hour traffic on the way home, not something that neither my car nor I really wants.

I have a stack of hedgies ready to be covered and the 2 for my mom ready to have their elastics put in. Tonight I’m going to focus on binding up the 2 books that have been sitting on my desk waiting for a week. Being sick really threw me for a loop. I didn’t realize how disruptive it could be not only to my DayJob but also to my studio.

I have decided to take my journals that are for sale off my website and move them to etsy.com. I decided this after realizing I haven’t made a single sale from the site in 2 years. It’s a great place to showcase my custom work and highlight what I can do in custom work, but the sales just aren’t there to support it. So what does this all mean?

Well, my etsy site is Comfortableshoes.etsy.com I’ll move the books that are for sale to there in the upcoming weeks. Prices will change in accordance with my new pricing structure. Meaning they’ll go up a tad. Those pages that are selling an item now will redirect people to my etsy page. I had thought of auctioning off some of the items on there but I can’t bear to think of some of them going for less than they are listed. I think that etsy is an affordable alternative to my low hit website.

Not to fear though, I plan on keeping the site up and running but it’s purpose will change. It will go from a website of art and books to one simply of books. I’ll keep a link for the art, but it won’t be highlighted the way it is now. I haven’t painted in ages and to have the paintings highlighted is simply foolhardy and wishful thinking. (I do hope that someday I spend my summers painting again.) I’ll be turning the page on journals and notebooks toa gallery of pictures and styles. I’ll be totally revamping the page into something that is hopefully a little slicker. It will mean my taking sometime to re-teach myself Dreamweaver as I seem to have lost the rudimentary skills I once possessed.

I don’t have a lot of ideas for it quite yet but it will be something that I continue to wrok on over the next few months. I expect that the move to etsy.com will take some time and won’t happen for a month or so. For now I’ll focus on moving things slowly and one at a time.

I had a request for a medieval/renaissance historical looking journal. This is it. While it’s not strictly true to renaisance binding, it’s a modern twist to the style.

It’s 200 pages of cream Eaton 24lb, 25% cotton paper. A deep chocolate brown seep hide and deer leather accents. Black irish linen for the sewing in a linking long stitch sewn to stations. I worked this one a little differently thanothers, I first stiched on the 1/2 the signatues, leaving room for the others. I then came back and stitched ont eh other 5, linking through as I stitched them on. This is a much easier way to sew alinking long stitch and I think it’s how I shal do themfrom now on, it was THAT much easier. It’s a 6×9 inch book and is about an inch and a half thick. It’s gefty and feels nice to hold.

Onto the pR0n:

Okay so a lot of people ask about how to attach a pen to a moleskine/hedgie. I stick to fountain pens which are a little larger than many pens (cross Ion seems to be the most popular.) Here’s how I attach my rotring Graphite fountain pen (Or my Vintage Pelikan GO! pen.)

First I hook the clip through the elastic, pointing away from the spineof the book. I then bring the pen to the back of the book.

Then I stick my fingers through the elastic at the bottom of the book a couple of twists later I am able to form a loop that will hold my pen.

I stick my pen into the loop and release. It holds well in my bag but not so well in my back pocket.

I’ve been considering for some time if I would like an eBay store in addition to my regular listings. This would open up a variety of options for me. I could list an item for an indefinite period of time and it could be buy it now. Someone could look at the item for a very long tie and then decide to buy it, rather than having only 7 days to decide if they like it or want it.

There are many positives to this approach but the drawbacks are large amounts of money. The initial insertion fee is only 2 pennies but the final fee is 8 percent of the final value, up to $25 and then it’s 5 percent on any money over $25! So the book that I sold for $75 would have had $4.52 in fees, in addition to the $16 that I would have to pay monthly for the store. The usual amount in fees is $3.60, including the listing fee! That’s nearly a full dollar difference.

The major thing I would be paying for is the huge AMOUNT of time a store lets you leave items up, they can be there for 30 days or as long as it takes to sell. If I were selling 100’s of books that were identical I would find this format useful, however as it is now it’s not a good fit for me. I’ll continue to poorly utilize my website.

If eBay were to make the fee less, I’d think about getting a store, if it were $9 or so, I just can’t use the store effectively and pay as much as it is currently. It’s just too much.

In other news I’ve been sketching out a lot of designs in a hedgie I made for the purpose. I carry it with me at all times, even at the DayJob. When inspiration strikes I’ll run and take brief break and sketch out an idea. It’s also a good way to think out ideas for the books.

And example:
I’ve been working on a medieval inspired design for someone and I was going to stick with something very simple, no ornamentation, and simple long stitch sewn into stations. I liked the idea- it would be very faithful to the medieval books. BUT, medieval books often were very ornate. I want to get the simple rustic feeling in there but with a little ornament. Thinking this through and looking at images online and in books I came up with an idea. In my little book I sketched it out and then worked it out in sketches and words. My thought process became evident through 5 pages or so of sketches. I then drew up a template and cut it from kraft paper and worked it so it was exactly what I was looking for. This I traced to cardboard and then used it to cut leather. I’ve been working ideas out this way for years but I’ve always done it Joseph Cornell style on scraps of paper which I would later gather and toss into a box, eventually tossing it out (very unlike Cornell). Now I’m making an effort to either think things out in this little book or to save the scraps and paste them in. If I find odd “thought Scraps” around my studio I’m pasting them in.

Now I’ve got a whole series of little books to think in.

(I’ll scan in some pictures of my little notbooks.)