Thursday, January 22, 2009

Pretty Packages

When I'm packing items up to ship them, sometimes I just feel creative and want to add a little extra sparkle to the package. Sometimes I'm late in shipping things and I feel bad, so I make the packaging extra-special so my customer won't think I don't care about them! In this case it was both:



The pendant is held tight to the card with some thread strung between the stones and tied in the back. All recycled materials, of course. I used paint swatches for the mountains and sky and mini cairn, textured cardstock for the hills and path. Translucent vellum for the snow. These are the times I'm so glad I have a scrap bin. 



This little pendant is going out tomorrow. Hopefully Kathy in Atlanta, GA will enjoy it. :)

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Hooray! A tag!

<--- (Lovely new mini! I'm practicing my case-binding. And I had this new chocolate linen. Yum.)

So... I love tag. Or I would if I was in better shape. Tag these days usually ends up with lots of shrieking and heavy breathing. And if I'm going to be shrieking and breathing heavily, I prefer horizontal activities. Owps. Too much info? Hahah... anyway! 

Kiley has tagged me! Alright, list 7 book facts about yourself and tag 7 people. Well, I don't think I have 7 people to tag at the end, but I'll see what I can do. 
So here goes. 

1. Apparently like Kiley, I'm terrible at keeping a journal, too! I have endless journals that I've started but never finished. I usually end up writing daily for a week or two, then being lazy and not writing for a month or so, then ripping out the pages I wrote when I finally come back to the journal. Meh, I just don't like my own writing! I know, terrible. 

2. My only bookshelf right now is a gorgeous white pine number that my father made for me. It has an overhang on the top shelf with a heart carved in it. I treasure it because he made it for me when I was about 10, and he carved that heart by hand. He always worked with hand tools and I love the unprofessional, handmade quality of it. Although the shelves are a little warped now, and it's overflowing with too many books, we refinished it last year with a satin clearcoat and now the wood gleams the way it did when he first gave it to me. He used such pretty dappled, knotted, wavy-grained wood. I wouldn't give it up for the world. 

3. Some of my very favorite books are stripper books. Candy Girl by Diablo Cody and especially Bare by Elisabeth Eaves are two standout titles. Lover Boy teases me about wanting to become a stripper, but really I don't. Their world just fascinates me. Plus, it seems that strippers who write memoirs tend to be smart, witty firecrackers and absolutely stellar writers. 

4. I absolutely despise book collectors who just buy up old books and put them in boxes or on shelves, never to be read again, who buy books just to HAVE them. I believe every book should be read until it falls apart, then repaired or rebound and read again. Those book collectors should be locked up in libary closets!

5. When I was much, much younger, I wrote stories. I still have tiny books I wrote in second, third, fourth grade (mom saved them ALL). I'd write on lined paper, scrap paper, receipts, notecards, anything, and fold it up, staple and make into a book. Little stories about dogs, spiders, little girls like me... I'm considering pulling a few out of storage and reproducing them for the Etsy shop. It would just be so fun to make big versions of them now. 

6. I never could get into using bookmarks. All my life I've just folded the corner of the book... awful for the book, but bookmarks always slide down and you lose them in the pages, or if they have string or dangly bits those get caught in something and yanked out of the book, or get in the way. I hear that Barbara at MoonBindery does the same... unite, page corner-turners! :)

7. I have a major addiction to pop-up books. I love the really fancy ones with pull-tabs, levers, doors, pop-ups and pop-outs and pop-downs. The whole book just comes alive. My mom has the same affliction, and I think it caught it from her. She has a fantastic pop-up book collection. 

Okay, I could go on talking about books forever. Like how much I LOVE when NPR does a story about books or interviews an author and you can hear the page turning over the radio. Nothing like the sound of a crisp page turning. Mmmm. 

Alright, I tag Sarah over at littlepaperbird, Kirstin at greentrikepress, Amy at NightJar Books, Dahlila at Snowflower Street (who doesn't make books but lots of wordy items, so perhaps she will participate?), um... Bibliophile! of course, and... can't think of any more that haven't already been tagged! That's five at least. 

And thanks for the tag, Kiley! 

Friday, January 16, 2009

So Long Away

But now I am back!

What have I been up to? The short list: 

1. Putting together a photo blog for my day job as a newspaper photographer: . 


2. Buying a new camera: 

More info about my new lovely available here

3. Settling my new Midnight Shubunkins into their home in my 120 gallon aquarium. 


4. Taking pictures of my fiance's great-aunt Claire's glove collection for the Eventual Invention shop: 


5. Buying the coolest waffle iron EVER


6. Of course, making new books! I'm making a bunch more today, too. A rare day off. 



I had such a wonderful holiday and I hope you all did, too. I see you've been busy blogging up a storm while my blog has been gathering dust. Hopefully I'll be getting to update it a bit more often now that things have settled down a bit!