Welcome and bienvenido!

Hello all you future Pied Crow blogreaders! ...Or at least, I hope that at some point there will be more than just me reading this blog. Well, me and Max, but I don't know how much attention he's paying. I think he's upside down in the sunshine right now. Which explains why I'm not working on new journals. See?



This is Max. He is the Pied Crow/Eventual Invention mascot. He's the reason I am constantly buying new pencils (he steals and hides them) and why I'm obsessive about picking up all the bits of ribbon, thread, and paper that cover the desk and floor when I finish a journal (he eats them).
Max is a Very Mean Kitty, though I'm in the process of changing that. We go for walks, we go to the park, and slowly he's improving. He was never socialized properly - although that makes him a Very Good guard cat...



Anyway, being as this is the very first post, I should introduce myself.

I'm Iris, and I live in Simi Valley, California.

Our home houses eight goldfish, 40-something aquatic snails, one cat, one fiance, and myself. Here we are on our annual camping trip:



We live in a little townhouse, which we have painted yellows and greens and browns. It's a charming little place, and a lovely place to make journals. I have a nice easel/desk under a big window, and every journal in the shop starts as bits of ribbon and fabric and paper stashed around that desk.
I'm a photojournalist by trade, which takes up a lot of my time and is usually the reason journals get listed in bunches and gobs all at once. I'll probably post photos up here from work occasionally.

So what's the story behind Pied Crow Press? It began with Etsy, of course. I saw all the fantastic handbound books by MyHandboundBooks, Geraldine Newfry, grimm, Ort Bindery, Karleigh Jae, paperiaare, NightJar Books, Twin Gypsy Journals, TheBlackSpotBooks... I could go on and on.
And I thought, hey! I love books! and hey! that looks like a great way to get out this creative madness without ending up with lots of projects sitting around my house! and hey! I think I can do that!
So I spend ages on bookbinding blogs (I have them listed in my links, they're all fabulous) looking up the basics. Each book was a learning experience. I started listing them on Etsy in eventualinvention, PiedCrow's sister shop (which was originally really just a destash/jewelry shop) and I got a great response. But eventualinvention isn't such a great name for a bookbinding operation. I was working on the Spots and Stripes book (currently in my shop) and I thought I might like to stencil a black and white animal on the cover, in keeping with the theme. So a few google searches later, I stumbled upon pied crows. What a cool bird, I thought! And it hit me. So that's that.

I have a ton of bookbinding links in my blog and I'm going to slowly go through them and explain where I found all the information that I used. Because Etsy is about community and sharing, and it took me ages to learn some techniques because they're impossible to find online. But perhaps I can help you out with that.

So here are a few of my past creations:









There are tons more in the Etsy shops right now - you can see them in the sidebar on the right - and I've got about four more still in the works. So check back soon! I have tons more to share. :)

-Iris