I had an amazingly long day at the day job today. I won’t go into details but let’s just say that I was tired when I left work. I had a light meal and washed it all down with a coke, and sometimes I’m amazed by how much a soda is reviving. It’s that little shot of caffeine and sugar.

It also prepared me for a major set back on the custom journal I’ve been working on. I had noticed last night that the leather on the cover was acting a little odd. Today I noticed that this hide is starting to have the separation problem that the black hide was having. This is the 2^nd hide where I’ve had the issue. I’m not happy about it. I re-cut the hide from a different part of the hide and I noticed none of the issues. The other problem was that I had double reinforced the spine and hit it with too much heat and the tyvek melted. Really not good. Instead of a soft flexible but super strong spine I ended up with a hard stiff spine. Not good.

So I’ve re-cut and re-punched the new cover and I will sew it tomorrow. I also have some plans for advertising my work at the store. We have these little cards that we can post on the bulletin board and really the only time people see them is when they are waiting for the bathroom or for a class. I’m going to design a little book style advert that will hold my cards and let me post them easily at the store. It’s just an idea. I’m also thinking of spending some cash and advertising in some writing magazines. It could be worth it. Though I did notice that in some cases a tiny little classified ad could cost $150! Too rich for my blood but maybe someday. I think that branching off into handmade books of people’s first novels would be fantastic and great business.

Okay, so the day job was incredibly draining. I took a nap rather than working on anything productive.

I did however, get the stations on the spine laid out and punched, so all I have to do tomorrow is punch the stations along the signatures and sew. We’ll see how draining the job is though.

I forgot to mention that I have 3 journals up on eBay right now they are here:
ONE
TWO
THREE

The accounting things I had to do today took much less time than I had expected. I’m finished in record time. Though I suppose it doesn’t matter as much as it could because I remembered that some of the files I had lost were in fact backed up online. All I really had to do was download and re-enter the information into the spreadsheets. Not bad.

So I managed to get all that done as well as verify some finishing touches for 2 custom orders. One of the journals is a very rough journal, the sort I really love to make. The details are all left up to me and a general idea of what the client wants as well as a little personal information about the person it’s being gifted to. I find that sometimes that’s the best thing I need when making a journal, just a little background. I don’t need a lot of information just a touch.

I’ve printed up the lined pages for both the journals. It’s strange for me to be including lines; most of my clients have been artists or art journalers, not poets or writers. It’s been a pretty easy thing to do. In the past I used PageMaker or lotus, but I’ve found that word does it just fine. The other thing that is working better is the printer, I think that my old computers just didn’t have enough oomph to drive this printer, because now it’s printing out 20 and 50 sheets at a time with no problems, unlike in the past when I would have to print out 5 sheets at a go because it would stop working and the computer would think for a half hour, it just works so much better.

Tomorrow I’ll be able to finish most of one of the custom journals, I’m not sure I’m going o go with a more historically accurate sewing or one that I like the best. We’ll see.

I have figured out how to make lines on a page. I’ve done it before but it wasn’t this easy. I had PageMaker ready to use and looked at it and realized I really didn’t want to use it for any amount of time tonight, so I pulled out my trusty Word and figured out how to do it the quick and dirty way. I must say that while lines aren’t my thing, they came out pretty damn well. I’m pretty happy with them. The proportions per page are good and they have just enough weight and distance that they look easy for writing.

I’m trying to decide if I want to take it to a Copy center to have it printed or if I want to print it here. I think that I don’t want to pay the extra cash for printing, so I’ll print it here. I have plenty of toner in the laser printer and plenty of paper. I’m rather looking forward to making this journal.

I went with a different vendor for the leather and I’m thinking she’s going to take along time on the shipping. I’m not happy about it as I paid top price for the leather and an exorbitant amount for shipping putting this hide in the top amount I’ve ever spent on a hide. Not to worry thought I’m sure that I’ll be able to sell journals in this color. Pink is after all quite popular. It would also make perfect pregnancy journals.

I need to follow up with a coworker with the journal she wanted me to make for her brother. I’m not sure what she had in mind but we’ll figure it out.

Tomorrow will be accounting day for me. I need to go through all my things, take an inventory of it all and figure out how much I’ve spent on hides, paper, and thread. I know that I’ve got a lot of stock right now- my paper rack keeps growing. I have it all strung up around the room like laundry. It’s pretty cool, or so I think.

4 journals in one day, I’m pretty impressed with myself. Granted I had all the covers finished ahead of time and all I needed to do was cut and fold the paper and sew the covers on. I took a lot of breaks and took a decent nap. (C’mon today is one of my few days off at the day job I need to relax sometimes.)

One of the journals that I made today was a custom cover with a standard sewing, so that took more time, and I think it’s design I’ll be using in the future because it really was cool looking, very tuff.

I’ll be listing some of them on the website and some of them on eBay as time goes on.

I’ve decided that I will only be putting gone or two listings up on eBay at a time, probably one brown and one black or some combination of the two. Though I think it will always be the stock journals. I’m not sure I’m still thinking it through. My sales did get high enough that I was actually getting paid for my time not just the materials.

Tuesday is going to be my day for accounting type things. When my hard drive failed I lost all my information- all the spreadsheets I had made and all the information I needed for my money information. So I have to redo all those and I’m going to back it up to my thumb drive and perhaps my palm pilot. Trying to figure out everything again is going to be a huge pain in the butt, and I would rather spend my time working on journals rather than figuring out my money situation.