Tag Archives: journal

Friday Friday Friday

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Friday’s are on of my favorite days of the week. It’s the start of the weekend and usually means that I’m going to have 2 days off in a row (not this week but we don’t have to talk about that!) But something new that I’ve found are d’blogala and the blog’s Art Journal Fridays! Every Friday the blog features a new writing prompt, and they are GOOD.  THey start with a basic premise- suck as "draw a grid on paper." Then the prompt turns to mroe specific, us whatever you want to decorate the grid with whatever you want. I love that kind of prompt.

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So now I have another thing on Fridays to look forward to!

leather…. black leather

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Let’s talk about leather, black leather, distressed bomber
jack brown leather and baby bottom smooth deer hide.  Well there’s not much to talk about really, other than it makes
some very sturdy notebooks, sketchbooks and journals that will survive time and
maybe even some serious abuse.

For awhile now I’ve spent a lot of time making recycled
journals and simple hedgehogs with wrap around covers there’s nothing wrong
with that as it keeps me making books but what I love to make are notebooks and
journals like these below:











The really beauty of a journal like this is that because of the style of its binding it can expand to hold a whole lot of stuff- odds and ends, paint, and emphemeria. The card stock pages are made to withstand abuse and  hold all the stuff someone might choose to glue on those pages. Even stuffe3d the strap and flap will wrap around the journal and hold it shut.

160 cardstock pages (110lb) wrapped in heavy smooth black cowhide, flap and strap closure, long stitch sewing style so that it expands to hold anything,  It will be on eBay starting tomorrow with a low buy it now price as well as an auction option.

Inspire Me Thursday

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I just found this site via SuziBluTube’s blog it’s called Inspire Me Thursday. It has prompts and ideas to inspire you in your art and journaling. They say this:

Welcome to Inspire Me Thursday…   A weekly dose of inspiration for
mixed media artists and creative types to nurture their muses and CREATE!

I think that perfectly fits the bill. It’s a simply laid out site site that focuses on the inspiration. The center column has quotes for inspiration, the right most a dialog about the prompt for that week, and below that is an area for people to leave comments- with links to your blog with images of how the site inspired you. At the very bottom are random bits of inspiration- a font site and flickr.

I really like the concept of this site- give a little inspiration then readers add to it and create the content- something like a wiki but with added inspiration.

Head on over and check it out!

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Big Leather Journals

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This week I finished 5 more journals. 4 are going up to my etsy account and one is going to eBay. All are smythe sewn- the style of moleskines. So I start with the book block, stitch it, then glue it and clamp it. Then that book block is glued into a cover.

For these I decided to make covers with flaps and straps instead of elastics. I thought it would be a nice deviation from what I’ve been doing. I’m particularly fond of the distressed brown leather. I like to call the color Choco-Latte, because it’s the color of coffee or milk chocolate.

The 4 below are the books on etsy. They are on there for $24.99 plus shipping via priority mail.

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recap of this week in the studio

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Phew it’s been a busy week here at Comfortable Shoes Studio. I’ve been crazily busy with the DayJob as well as in the studio. Yup, fresh new books. I’ve got a stack of graph paper jotters, a group of cardstock hedgehogs, a couple of kraft paper hedgehogs and a 100% cotton hedgehog all headed for etsy.

I’ll post links to etsy when I get them loaded up. I’m pretty excited to get some leather books back up to etsy, it’s been awhile and the recycled notebooks seemed to be taking over my shop. While I was in the studio I cut several large notebook sized covers from this chunk of sleek black cowhide I’ve got, they will be fantastic with either white or red stitching…. Keep an eye out for those too. I’m going to work on designing the spines today.

Here are some pics to occupy you until then:

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Yes, that is graph paper
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New Jotters

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I don’t have pictures yet but I bought more graph paper, so I made a metric ton of graph paper jotters. They came out great. I also stitched up a lot of blocks for hedgehogs- 8 with 65 lb super stiff cover stock in cream, 120 pages in 6 signatures. The blocks came out really nice. Later this week I’ll be gluing them up and cutting covers.
I’m also working on some of the journals I used to make- leather with paper backing and super nice paper inside. Yeah baby. I’ll get some pics up tomorrow.

PIpe Clamp Book press

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The book press below might not be pretty but I’m sure it’s plenty serviceable and would give anyone the amount of pressure they need to press up a few hedgehogs. I found it on this website.  And it’s currently for sale.

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It’s made from a pipe clamp- readily available from any woodworking store or big box building store like Home Depot. Most pipe clamps can be bought in the pieces and you then buy the pipe to mount the clamping pieces and the system works through leverage. After sliding the top clamp into place you then screw the turn screw to create the tight pressure. Because you can buy pipe in any length this is a great design to work with- the only limit to the stack is how high you want to go. I wouldn’t suggest going over 16 inches, but that’s a lot of books. Hurrah for a binder thinking outside the box and making something that works, is relatively inexpensive and provides more than enough clamping pressure for the home binder.

Here’s an INteresting Idea

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Maybe the next time you journal you can choose a new identity to force yurself into a new way of thought? that’s what the journaler and blogger here thought up. Check out the pic below for an interesting pictorial thought on this idea.

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I like the idea, and its a nice way to take an old writing prompt and explore it over again. For those of use who are visual journalers what about drawing or writing in someone else’s style?