Take a look at this book. It measures 9×12 inches and has 192 pages. The paper is 60lb drawing paper and will handle just about any media. The cover is stiff smooth black cowhide. Features a flap and strap closure. The binding is a longstitch with linking and a keyhole cut into the spine. I have a lot more pics on my flickr page. This one is sold (custom order) but I’m working on another in golden yellow deer hide.
This large 6×9 inch journal is entirely handmade. The cover is hand cut from a smoothly textured jet black cowhide. the spine of this journal is 1.5 inches thick.
The inside pages are 160 unlined 110lb cardstock. The color of these pages is a warm cream color. The texture of the pages is perfect for writing and sketching. The paper is acid free. It’s a wonderful thick paper perfect for writing with a heavy fountain pen, no feathering or bleed through in my experience. It’s a lovely paper.
The pages are hand sewn to the cover with unbleached naturally colored Irish linen thread. It’s been lightly waxed to prevent fraying and tangling during sewing. The sewing style on this journal is a variation of the long stitch. The there are 3 keyholes that peak through the cover to the folded edges of the paper.
The back cover folds over the front to form an envelope style flap. This protects the inner pages from damage but also holds everything secure. It expands allowing you to stuff as much onto these pages as possible. From the flap emerges a long matching leather strap that ties around the journal and to itself to hold everything inside securely. With 160 pages to glue or stuff into this could end up being a very thick journal.
ON etsy here.
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.
I made a few covers book board and paper from my stash of decorative papers. I made them to specifically cover hedgehog book blocks. So each cover is 3.5×5.5 inches and the spine is .75 inches thick.
To go with these covers I made some paper covered hemp cored headbands. These are glue on style and you probably can’t see them in the pictures, but they are there. I used dark red/burgundy colored washi paper. I used it because it’s thin, glues easily and I knew would wrap around the hemp cord with ease. I also knew that once it was glued up it would become stiffer than it was before and even with that the washi would absorb glue easily as I stuck it to spines. I’ve seen several other methods of making end/head bands before with fabric, paper and one I particularly liked was one that uses ribbon.
I’m listing one of these to etsy, one to ebay and keeping one.
This one will go on eBay.
The one above is mine. 🙂
This is a shot of all the other covers that I’ve made. I"m pretty happy with how they came out now I need to make some more bookblocks. 🙂
I really enjoy the images and art in the following blog. Arielle’s art blog highlights pages from her art journal. Interestingly she uses a lot of different media in the journal. I particularly like the pages that use an interesting background with a few simple visual elements on top, like the 2 examples below.
As always, all art property of the artist.
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.
Lines and color, color and lines; if that’s something you like check out Ester Wilson’s blog. I’m in love with her sketchbooks. You can read her blog and then head over to her website and check out her sketchbooks on a page where you can flip through the books pages. Incredible. These 2 images are only examples of the artists work, she’s got a lot more at her blog where you can see her use of color and line.
All images propertly of the artist, Ester Wilson.
Here’s another blog that subscribes to my favorite sketchbook style- pencil, ink then color. I particularly love the image below of the yoga poses with the ghostly pencil sketches in the background. I love the lively lines of the pencils sketches and yet how simple they are. Following that is a sketch of a coffee maker… It’s a great layout of a page, well designed and a small blurb for journaling. I like it a lot!
After a mad dash of posting to etsy the graph paper jotters and sketchbook hedgehogs are up!
If you want to see a mad crazy amount of pictures of them head over to my flicker page here.
