Friday, June 10, 2011

My First Sales

Tomorrow I'm sending the first books I sold on my Etsy shop away to their new homes, so for now, I'm going to write them a little farewell.

This little burlap covered book is landscape oriented and filled with Strathmore sketching paper. The pages are hand torn and the endpages are upcycled brown paper. The feeling I was going for was completely natural, and transforming the mundane into art.


The next book is a bit different than any I'd made before. It's covered in weathered leather, and bound in the traditional Coptic Stitch, which bares the spine. The spine itself is hand-sewn with waxed thread. Inside there are white sketching pages and beautiful Florentine paper which I glued to the wrong side of the leather with archival bookbinder's glue. To finish it off, I attached an ornate nameplate on top to allow it's new owner to designate it's use.


The third journal I sold, is one of the best hard-back, casebound books I've made, which was themed in Jane Eyre. Jane is this quiet, staid, and very Victorian heroine, and I tried to capture her character in the muted, neutral colors incorporated throughout the journal. However, the cream filigree of the cover paper is still very feminine and beautiful. On the cover, I placed an artist's rendering of the final reunion between Jane and Mr. Rochester, salvaged from a reader's digest edition that was falling apart. 

I used traditional binding techniques to make this journal: by hand sewing the signatures of Wausau stationery with bookbinding thread, and using PVA (bookbinder's archival) glue. It's finished with white headbands and camel colored cardstock for the endpapers.


The fourth book I sold was my all-time favorite. For this mini leather journal, I was inspired by the scene from Disney's Pinocchio when he carries a belted stack of textbooks to school. I wondered what kind of journal Pinocchio would carry, and I decided on this smooth tan leather with black leather straps to incorporate the belted look. 

Each page is hand-torn Wausau Astroparche writing paper with an antique parchment finish, which are hand-sewn in the limp binding method with waxed thread. The end papers are hand-made turquoise paper with a bit of a sheen.
 

Well, more to come later. I will surely miss all of these beauties, but I'm sure they're going to good homes!

1 comment:

  1. Wonderful work! :D Congratulations on your sales. Many more to come I am sure!

    ReplyDelete

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