Pied Crow Press

Sad Day... Sort of

2009-09-18T10:42:00.000-07:00

Hey all my lovely bookbinding friends!

Just a short post to let you all know that my entire shop is 25% off. I'm going on indefinite hiatus. As you can see, I've been absent from the bookbinding scene for quite a while. I've been very busy and my personal life is keeping me from binding. So I'm closing up shop for now - I may open up again in the future or list the occasional item - but I need to sell everything right now to pay some bills. So please help me out and buy yourself a nice journal!

I miss you all and I hope you are well. :)

Iris

Lately!

2009-03-25T19:41:00.000-07:00

I've been busy as usual. But some cool things happened:

We made a library! We had this little alcove on the landing of our stairs, with an etagere and some knick-knacks on it, for so long. Finally we got sick of the etagere and decided to move some things around. Joe convinced me the landing was large enough for the bookshelf.... just! So now I cuddle up here with my super-soft woven cotton throw blanket and enjoy tea and books. Right under a lovely window, too.

Also...

I learned to block print. It started with a Speedball linocut kit that we found on sale at the mall. For only $10, and I had wanted to learn block printing for ages. So for my first one I decided on something simple (yeah, right!) like a rhinoceros.

Meet Leonard:

Since my first linocut turned out so remarkably well, I ordered some pink Speedball stamp blanks on Etsy and once they arrived, I got to work:

On the upper left is a cafe racer that Love commissioned, then a couple goldfish in honor of my aquatic kids, a little girl in a rainstorm, and my very favorite so far, a logo for the Etsy shop!

It's actually about half this size, and I was astonished that it turned out so clearly, especially with all those tiny letters! I drew it by hand, reversed it onto the rubber and cut from there. The only thing that didn't turn out perfect - the N in the AND is backwards! Oops.

In other news, I bought some succulents for some ceramic planters in the house, and on the soil of one of them was a big patch of moss. So I bought a little hurricane jar and now, like every good Etsian, I have a moss terrarium.

We bought some bookshelves for the office, which is going through a mini-remodel right now. There are notes on this picture - click to go to Flickr and see them! :)

And finally, I haven't been up to much on the book front lately. But I did manage to make this tiny spring book, with a cotton ribbon around the middle and a button closure.

I also went to the beach with my fabulous friend Ryan. Hilarity ensued.

That's all for now. Hope you're all doing well!

Lots happening...

2009-03-23T19:26:00.000-07:00

And so much to update about!

Big news for the moment is that Pied Crow Press now has a Facebook page! I've just joined Facebook myself but of course once I found out you could create pages for businesses, I thought it would be too cool to have a page for the shop! So check me out!

Pied Crow Press Facebook Page

It's quite bare right now but you can become a fan if you have a Facebook page, too, and you can post a review if you're a customer of mine! :D

Surprise Thank-yous

2009-03-09T19:42:00.000-07:00

For the past few weeks I've been furtively collecting little goodies for thank-yous to 20 customers who really helped me get through the holidays on a tight budget. The sales from my two shops provided just enough money to allow me to buy nice things (mostly handmade, too!) for my family. It really made the holidays for us. Budgets were tight this year, but my customers came through. Hooray!

So I wanted to send a very special thank-you to each of them. Something tailored to each customer, something cute and sweet and thoughtful. I spent my free time for the last two weeks sewing and binding and packing, and sent out 20 packs on Saturday. Full of goodies, as you can see:

That's a handwritten (and handstamped) thank-you note, a business card, a vintage vocabulary card, a handsewn fabric envelope pouch with a vintage button, vintage scrabble tiles that form a word, a handmade envelope of recycled paper containing poppy seeds (upon which I have painted poppies!), a handbound matchbook notepad with the customer's initial sewn upon the cover, and recycled paper gift tags. Inside a lovely muslin pouch. :D

I had fun with those scrabble tiles. I bought a lot of about 100 tiles, so with 20 packages, each got a four or five letter word, or two smaller words. Among my favorites were OOPS, ZOOM, IHUG, GEEK, READ and WOOF. Uh... yes, I did have a lot more vowels than consonants, haha! So most were double-vowel words.

Each of the fabric pouches was different. I didn't have enough of any one fabric for any two pouches to be alike, not to mention I wanted them to be unique. So among the twenty, I rotated with a textured purple, red, brown, yellow, blue/brown striped, dark blue, spring green and white. Each with one color on the inside, one on the outside. They took a whole day to sew together on my somewhat broken sewing machine (the tension won't go high enough) but they came out so adorable.

There's the whole pile all labeled and ready to go. Mostly US customers, except three international - one to Italy, one to Canada and one to Australia!

The first two responses came today. Just the sort of reaction I was hoping for! :) I do love to make people smile.

from metisRoss:

you you you! *flaps hands*

opening up my mailbox today, i did not expect to find the best thing to happen all week in there. :] you're so sweet it's giving me cavities. i hope you know those are expensive to fill. ;)

8] i'm glad to hear that you holidays were for the better because of the small things other people do. thanks for the thought, time and effort to send out something so completely unexpected. it just proves that the world is full of lovely things. thank you so much. :]

jesus, etsy is like the secret place where all the awesome people are. :]

from 4StarGalaxy:

Hi Iris, What a wonderful surprise!!!! I got your package today and have to say what a treat it was to get all the wonderful goodies. Thank you so much for being so kind and for putting that extra curve in my smile today. Sincerely, Roxanne

Hooray!! I have the sweetest customers. It makes me so very happy that they liked their packages so much.

Books and more books!

2009-02-14T23:38:00.001-08:00

So much book-related news lately! I took a ton of photos so you could all see the wonderful happenings of this week.

Here's a book my mother bought me. It's a collection of classic children's stories, all packed into one volume. It's part of a set of these collected stories in different themes, but this particular one was the one that caught my eye.

Strangest thing, I saw this book in a tiny used bookstore about two weeks ago, when I was absolutely scraping the bottom of my bank account, and I carried it around the store for about an hour. I looked at it and the beautiful illustrations, the gorgeous endpages, the wonderful little stories. I put it down, picked it back up.... put it down, picked it back up. I thought and thought and finally decided I would have to come back for it, since I didn't have the cash just then. After which I went back to work and promptly forgot all about it.

Then yesterday, I go to my mother's house and she bought me the exact same book! She had no idea I had drooled over it - I never told her! She found it in a different thrift shop, thumbed through it and thought I might like to use it for bookmaking. She gives it to me on Friday the 13th! Weird.... very weird....

Another book arrived today - I forget where I read about it - but the description was so charming I immediately ordered a used copy from Amazon.

Absolutely hilarious. If you can find a cheap used copy (mine was $5 with shipping) it would be worth your time. Good for a smile on a rainy day.

My mother also bought me this brilliant book-reader silhouette magnet for Valentines Day, which occupies a place of honor on our already full fridge:

In other creative news, I found a bit of fake moss and an empty frame and made this the other day...

I saw these lovely little word puzzle pillows just two days before Valentines Day and knew they wouldn't make it in time even if I bought them that very day, but I adore the concept! So I decided to make a pillow of my own for my mother. I stamped out the puzzle, circled with a Sharpie, embroidered the outline, sewed it together, stuffed with polyfill, and ta-da! She loved it.

And then... oh, this was the highlight of my weekend.

This little darling was sitting in a tiny thrift shop a couple cities over and I circled the shop at least fourteen times, looking longingly at it each time, before I decided to splurge. A Remington Portable Noiseless Model Seven, manufactured 1931-1941. On sale for $50 - I'm broke right now, but it was worth it. The advancing mechanism is busted, but I found a service manual and upon inspection, it looks very simple to fix. Hooray! The ink ribbon is even still good. And it's got the little bell that dings when you come to the end of the row, and all the keys are there and functional and and and... !

Just look at the typewriting loveliness! I can't explain how EXCITED I am to have found this!!

And lastly. I always like to see other people's workspaces and such. Here's mine:

Those are my handbound books on the top shelf. To the left of them is a vintage metal cabinet with plastic drawers full of antique buttons and beads. They were Lover Boy's grandmother's, and his mother gave them to me when grandma passed away earlier this year. The bookshelf itself is a white pine shelf my father made for me when I was about 10 years old - I mentioned it in an earlier post.

I know all you bookmakers have fabulous bookshelves too! What does yours look like? I'd love to see portraits of you with your shelf. :)

Things About Yesterday

2009-02-08T00:26:00.001-08:00

Well, it's officially tomorrow at this time (12:26 am) so I can now post Things About Yesterday.

1. Bought some soap. Because the only bars we had left are Lover Boy's bars, and when I shower with them I smell like Love all day, which is distracting.

2. Fed the cat. When he is hungry he is obnoxiously friendly, and he tries to sit on my head while I am sleeping and stick his wet whiskered nose in my ears.

3. Opened up all the windows. We had a lovely spring storm move in on Wednesday, and it spent all day yesterday packing up and moving out. So the afternoon was full of enormous clouds and blue sky and bracing cold air, smelling of rain.

4. Pushed a whole lot of ickiness out of the second hole in my left ear, which has been acting up lately. Ewwwww is right. Funny, the right ear couldn't care less about being newly pierced.

5. Found bunches of new favorite blogs (thanks, blog friends, for also having lists of your favorites!). My list is getting too long to keep up with!

6. Bought some chocolate. I never much cared for milk chocolate, and then one fateful afternoon I discovered Lindt Milk Chocolate. I always wish the bars lasted longer. Made a hot cup of chai to go with my rapidly disappearing chocolate.

7. Watched Lover Boy fall asleep on the couch. He always says he won't, and he always does. And I'm always up for hours after him, wandering the internet and making books. Though there are late night activities I'd much rather be doing. Bother.

I'm sad to hear that many local friends and some of you, my blog friends, lost jobs recently or had hours cut. My very best wishes to you and your search for employment. I'm desperately hoping that here in California, where we still have no state budget, we don't all end up with I.O.U. slips in our tax return envelopes this spring. Every penny counts right now, for all of us. Best of luck, friends.

Been busy...

2009-02-07T14:57:00.000-08:00

Working on a bunch of new books! Mostly minis, though today I did finish a lovely keyhole book using a National Geographic illustration I'd been saving a long time, and some paper I had cut, folded and saved. I had a flurry of activity earlier in the week, when some gorgeous chiyogami scraps arrived from Lilliput Books. They're exactly the right size for making minis.

They were so pretty I just had to try them out right away! My minis are getting better and better. And they have helped me get over my problems with case binding! It was all a casing-in issue. I wasn't setting the book block far enough into the spine, and I wasn't leaving enough room in the spine for proper placement. So hooray!

I worked on some super teeny headbands for one of the minis, with fly-tying thread. Whew! That was so difficult, keeping the little bitty threads in order. Here's the result of this particular effort:

And here's that keyhole book, using the illustration. Hooray!

I think more keyholes are in my future...

Pretty Packages

2009-01-22T18:10:00.001-08:00

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. :)

Hooray! A tag!

2009-01-18T21:32:00.000-08:00

<--- (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!

So Long Away

2009-01-16T10:11:00.001-08:00

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!

Happy ^%*#$ Holidays

2008-12-10T16:32:00.000-08:00

Well, the economy is dumping on everyone, it seems. The thought is handily illustrated by the lovely origami piece to the left, an original design by Won Park (*orudorumagi11) and you can see more of his awesome dollar bill origami on his deviantart page.

This week I found out that I am not getting a holiday bonus. The holiday party was cancelled. And to top it all off, the office is closed without pay on December 24 and 31. So I get to flush nearly $200 down the drain, right at Christmas when I need it the most.

I am grateful to have a job. I am grateful to have a great boss who will go to bat for me and my coworker. I am grateful to have wonderful coworkers and a job that I enjoy doing, every day. I am grateful for an opportunity to work at a newspaper, express my creative freedom, expand my portfolio, have a flexible schedule...

But damn, does that $200 loss feel like a kick in the teeth this time of year.

NPR, my eternal companion, isn't doing much better. The excellent and very informative daily show, Day to Day, was cancelled, and Madeleine Brand, the host of the show was laid off today. Along with two other excellent reporters.

I'm so upset. Happy holidays, humbug! My Etsy sales have paid for Christmas presents this year, and I'm shopping with the thought of struggling craftspeople in my head. I bought all but two of my presents on Etsy this year, and I have more to buy if my day job pays me some back mileage checks and boosts my budget a bit. I took the handmade pledge a few months ago and I did quite well!

You'll remember the little garden I'm starting from the photos I put up in my last post. I'm sure glad about it. I now have rosemary, licorice basil, carrots, bell peppers, spearmint, beans, peas, spinach, lettuce, and some bee-attracting, pest-repelling marigolds and chocolate flowers. So in a few months I should be eating largely from my own garden. Hooray! Just about all my food comes from the farmers market now, and my grocery store shopping is all for staples like rice, beans, soup supplies, etc.

Sigh. I hope all of you are doing better... Christmas looks to be pretty dismal this year. Best of luck to you, friends.

November is Wonderful

2008-11-27T13:31:00.000-08:00

Truly. I love October, but I love October best in the Eastern Sierra. Down here in Simi Valley October isn't nearly as nice as November. The rains arrive in November. First it smells like rain, and the slate-colored clouds crowd the sky. Then suddenly it's pouring, the grasses bending low in relief, the streets flooding, water staining the trees and earth dark. And the next day everything is bright, even the sky is bluer with enormous white clouds rolling over the valley.

I open every window in the house to let in the crisp breeze.

In the oven are delicious Thanksgiving treats. Pumpkin pie sweetened with honey, NOT sugar. Delicious local honey, from bees who make it all by themselves from Buckwheat nectar. I like bees. I'm that girl that rescues an injured bee from the hot sidewalk and carefully puts him down in the shade.

Lover boy relaxes on the couch while I check on the pie.

On the windowsill, my vegetable/flower garden seedlings are enjoying the sun.

Lots to be thankful for today. I listed five (FIVE!) new journals in the shop - I had a very productive day off yesterday - the photo album I was working on went over extremely well, I have a brand new first cousin once removed, and I'm in love!

More details on the new journals and the photo album soon.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Holiday Shipping

2008-11-19T13:14:00.000-08:00

I know many of you will be doing lots of holiday packaging and using lots and lots of tape. Well, perhaps you want to pick up a lead apron before pulling out that tape gun. Have a listen to this NPR story - and I promise, it's totally and absolutely amazing. The link takes you to the story page, where you can read about it or listen to the interview with the PhD candidate that figured it out. There are sweet photos too!

Science Out of the Box: Sticky Tape Gives Off X-Rays

Thanks everyone for your ideas on the photo album. I might just do a little video on it construction, since I've recently discovered the coolness of the MacBook built-in camera.

New Rush Project

2008-11-18T10:43:00.000-08:00

Yesterday my photo editor commissioned me to make a photo album to hold 50 photographs of A Midsummer Night's dream that she took a while back. It's rush becuase she needs it by the end of the week!

So considering the time crunch, I'm thinking about how to construct the book.

I would like to use a coptic stitch, exposed spine binding. I'll use cream, heavyweight drawing paper for the pages, medium purple cardstock for spine protectors, indigo linen for the covers, a pretty Florentine-style purple, yellow and white floral print for the endpages, probably light violet waxed thread for the binding... but what's tripping me up is how to attach the photos.

Her original idea was to put them in regular plastic page-protector style sleeves. I think that in a nice album like this, that would look exceedingly tacky.
So my idea was to slide the photos into translucent vellum windows - so just the very edges of the photos would be covered. Kind of like a translucent overmat window. That way I could glue the outside and bottom edges of the vellum windows to the pages so she could slip the photos into the windows from the top. My fiance thought that was much too complicated. He suggested cutting four slits in each page so she could just tuck in the corners of the photos and be done with it. I'm not sure that's a good idea.

Whew.

2008-11-15T19:36:00.001-08:00

Holidays are coming up and I am far too busy!! I can't imagine what it will be like as they close in on me. I'm feeling flustered lately... and drinking way too much tea and coffee. Curse it all!

On the bright side, I did manage to squeeze this little thing into my schedule today:

Economic Depression

2008-11-10T22:45:00.000-08:00

Depression indeed, but fortunately ONLY economic. I've been in otherwise excellent spirits, driving my lovely miata around beneath positively stunning blue skies full of fluffy white clouds, cuddling with my sweetheart, pulling out my winter sweaters (i just love wearing knits), and drinking lots of coffee and tea.
I've recently developed a fondness for coffee - but what a coffee snob I am. I only like the Ethiopian Arabica beans from CB&TL, ground in small batches and immediately brewed, and only by French press. Add a bit of whole organic milk, and it's a marvelous after-supper drink. What an egotistical, liberal elitist I am! ... I rather hope not, and I hope that enjoying a bit of coffee made the simplest, most wonderful way possible doesn't automatically put me in that category. Pooh on conservatives for creating that stereotype, haha!
Anyway, on to the real good stuff. I was able to put a few things in the shop lately, but some have already been snapped up! I suppose it's the Holidays coming. I do need to get my ass in gear and start working on new pieces before Holiday shopping really begins.
So here's what I've been up to lately:

I put together this little pouch, on a whim because I haven't done any hand sewing in such a long time. I think I may do a bit more soon, I rather enjoyed it. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, too.

I also bound this up - slender little thing, as I'm running low on paper at the moment, but nicely pocket sized.

These are still in the shop, and I'm hoping someone will fall for them soon. It's not that I'm so greedy for the money - although it does help pay for paper at a time when my wallet is stretched thin, that's always nice - I'm so much more excited about finding them a new home. I want someone to open up the package and be thrilled at their new journal. I want them to fill the pages with stories and sketches, populate the blank paper with trees and faces and long strings of beautiful words. It's the potential that I'm excited about. The pregnant book-ness, the opportunity to capture thought and stories. What a romantic I am, eh? Joe is always harping on me about the shops... he doesn't think I'm considering them real businesses. I should be thinking about Marketing and Sales and Overhead. But who wants to think about all that. These are Books! They are Magical!
Ah, I am a romantic fool. Haha...

Well, anyway. Here's a new shop inhabitant, waiting for words:

A big bruiser of a book, Belgian binding and drawing paper inside. It was actually my first Belgian book, but these bindings really need waxed thread for stability and strength, and I didn't know that when I bound it. So I tore it apart this weekend and re-bound it, and now it's lovely and much more durable.

You may remember I mentioned these three a while back. I was thinking of stenciling something on their covers, or otherwise jazzing them up. But they've been sitting on my bookshelf and I can't bring myself to add anything to them, so they went into the shop unadorned. Simple and plain, but charming nonetheless.

Well, that's the news so far. Holidays coming up, and I think I will be making some new miniature books - I have lots of paper scraps waiting to be used, and there's a Stocking Stuffers showcase soon, so it's a good excuse to play with tiny books. :)

2008-11-05T11:28:00.000-08:00

I try not to make this blog too political. But two of my closest friends were devastated this morning, when we woke up to find that California Proposition 8, to strip away the right of gay couples to marry, had succeeded.

My very good friend Ryan Sas wrote this letter to his boyfriend, and I was so moved when he showed me, I felt it was important to share it with all of you. I have changed nothing but a few minor grammar corrections.

Don't give up. Please don't. I plead everyone who voted No onproposition 8 to not despair as the polls close in. As it stands we've made such gains in the opinion of California voters that it's foolish to give up.
When this started in may many doubted that we would last as the first polls showed our state against gay marriage. As the summer progressed we saw a shift in opinion from Yes to No. It was an exciting time. A time when I thought we had won.

Please click the "Read More" link below to continue reading. It's a short letter, and definitely worth the few moments it takes to read it.

Our mood changed when the lies began to come out, the Yes campaign knew that what better way to win then to sow the seeds of doubt in many of us. We questioned our Schools, and our faiths many of us fought battles deep within our souls.
As the time went on we saw polls up and down. We saw a military blitz run by the Yes on 8. And we persevered we confidently told our stories. We let everyone know that we will be hurt by this propositionand we are hurt today. At a time when giving up seems to easy we mustfight. Fight because there is nothing preventing our will. We've been through the darkest of nights and while that dawn might be farther off it is still there.
Last night we were given a new beacon of hope. Let president Obama nowlead us together in equality. Let his message of "Yes we can" resound in every individual. I would like to thank my peers who voted 2 to 1 against proposition 8. I would like to thank the mothers, fathers,sisters and any other family member for your support. We will fight and we will win.
The lessons of the past have gotten us to this point, we are fighting the good fair fight. In the past 8 years we've seen fear tactics used against us and they prevailed. Never fear as we are all known to grow. With messages of acceptance and love we can make even the coldest hearts melt. Yes we can do this, we can win this not with just the strength of our words but the strength of our hearts.
Equality is worth living for and equality is worth fighting for. Do not surrender, do not give up. There is too much momentum. I encourage each and everyone to begin spreading your word, your life. We make all the difference.

Awesome. Hooray for Google!

2008-11-04T10:26:00.000-08:00

Now you have NO excuse. VOTE!

Tomorrow is The Day!

2008-11-03T17:06:00.000-08:00

Election day, of course. It's the first one I've really, personally felt passionate about. First one I've been nervous about. I mean really nervous - butterflies in the tummy, nail-biting, obsessively poll-checking nervous. It's so close, I keep hearing. Obama's a bit ahead no matter how you add it up, but that only makes me more nervous. What about all the minorities, the first time voters, will they really show up? The long lines for early voting seem to be a sign of what we'll see tomorrow, and I wonder if they will have the stamina to wait for hours.
So much passion in this race. I think it's good for the country. We're finally seeing cracks in the grey plaster cast of apathy.

Well, in honor of Election Day, here are some of my Ety favorites. Such creativity!

If you're not super sick of Election Day swag already, click here to read the full post!

This is a classic - old school voter cool. From sellerheather, $3.

If you need something a little more modern, a little more hip, a little more... gangsta, this should do. From lilylu, $16.

Here's a cheerful, totally adorable way to support McCain. From mullishmuse, $13.

But (no pun intended) if you need a sexier political statement, these panties are perfect. From pantyline productions, $12.

Some people want to make a patriotic statement, but aren't willing to drop their pants to do so. Or they like to wear a cape and tights. Here you go. From columbina, $30.

These are just so fun. Perhaps you could project them onto a blank wall, some political light graffiti? Brilliant. From orangemoontoys, $24.

Having nightmares about hanging chads? Wondering whether to circle, punch, connect dots, draw lines, oh my! Make it easy on yourself. From moesewco, $15.

Had to mention this one - it's exactly how I feel! Perfect for all voters, red, purple or blue. From gallardoworks, $2.

Good luck and be safe on Election Day! And of course, VOTE!

This is how I feel this morning...

2008-10-31T09:36:00.000-07:00

It's an old photo, from two years ago in the old house. But I do like it. I miss that west-facing bathroom window. In the afternoon it would carve a canyon of light into the bedroom. It was so nice, all that warmth reflecting off the white bathroom tile.

But now we have many more windows. Out which I see some clouds today! Yep, check that out - we might even get a little rain.

I'm thrilled - we need the rain so much. On our trip to the Eastern Sierras, it absolutely poured. I couldn't have been happier. A little wetness wouldn't hurt Simi Valley, either. Rain is so infrequent it makes me want to take out the mountain bikes and go play in the mud.

Aw, and there's the sun peeking out. Curses.

We carved pumpkins last night with our good friends Shauna and Jeremy, and their tiny new person Kira. Very cute, but my favorite thing about her is that she isn't mine. I get to wave goodbye to her little blue eyes at the end of the night. Joe and I have a strict No Babies Policy. I love other people's babies, but I don't want any of my own.

I'll post some pumpkin pictures later tonight or tomorrow.

For now, this little guy is my very favorite Etsy pumpkin.

And of course, my favorite Etsy Halloween card.

I guess it's those big eyeballs that get me. :)

So four days until the election, everyone. Who's excited (and terrified)? ME!

Products of the Belgian Binding Blitz

2008-10-30T14:36:00.000-07:00

I'm on a Secret Belgian Binding tear right now - here are two of the products. :)

Hooray! Time to make more...

New Favorites!

2008-10-29T17:20:00.000-07:00

Two new favorites, in fact. One is secret Belgian binding, which I tried for the very first time last night and absolutely fell in love. I bound it a bit differently than the instructions, which was much more tedious, but nevertheless I just adore it.

The second new favorite is Darjeeling tea - I was perusing the shelves of the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf the other day, since I was out of loose leaf Chai (theirs is by far the best mix anywhere, with whole spices and whole leaf black tea - yummmm). They had Estate Darjeeling in those lovely triangle bags, so I thought I would give it a try. I've only had that horrible commercial powdered Darjeeling before.

When I first tried Chai, I wasn't so hot about it but after going to the CB&TL headquarters right over the hill in Camarillo and drinking some with their tea master, David, I couldn't get enough of it. I was shooting photos for an Acorn article and to this day I am so glad that I was the one my editor chose to shoot that assignment. David is a real tea connoisseur and his passion for good tea really impressed me. The samples of loose leaf tea that he gave me hooked me forever.

Anyway, so after my rather transformative experience with CB&TL Chai, I figured their Darjeeling would likely be something remarkable as well. And I was right! It's the sort of tea that seems to curl up around your tongue - spicy and full, with that golden flavor characteristic of black teas.

Ah tea. What would I do without you?

Another neat thing - I bought a nice big one pound block of beeswax on Etsy and it arrived, so I'm going to try another secret Belgian book tonight with waxed thread. :)

In and Out

2008-10-26T20:45:00.000-07:00

Out went this journal, finally... I was so excited that someone finally bought it, but in a way I am so sad to see it go. It was only my second try at a two-needle coptic, and the only one I've ever sold. It's been in my shop quite a while now, and while it got tons of hearts, nobody seemed to like it enough to take it home. Sad... it was so much fun to make, so graphic and really cool. But it finally found a new home - in Canada! Very awesome.

And.....

Into the shop went this journal! I didn't think I would have any time this weekend to make journals, but I was having such a craving to create... and I had this lovely squash-colored cardstock. It went so well with a lizard skin piece that I had been saving for so long. I just love the texture of this piece of leather - the scales start out black, round, and small, near the spine of the journal, and progress to large, wide and brown near the opposite edge.

The wooden bead matched the spine protectors nicely and so it all just came together. I had just enough paper left over from the last journal I made, Grey Winter, so I used that. A little pocket-sized autumn number. I almost want to keep it, I just love the color and texture of the skin.

So good stuff! And... coming soon, I have cyanotype fabric that I've been playing with lately, and I have two covers that are needing journal guts to complete them. So soon I will have some cyanotype-cover journals for you to see! Hooray! :D

And I recruited my kitty Maximus to have a look at the Etsy shops. He wanted to know if anyone sold organic handmade kitty food on Etsy. Sheesh, it's all he thinks about.

I think I will get him a spiked leather collar for Xmas. We went for a walk and he hissed at the Scary Black Birds. Then he hissed at the Mean Neighbor. Then he hissed at the Evil (teacup) Maltese Puppy. Then he hissed at the Terrible Garbage Cans.
He seriously needs to relax.

Anyway, that's all for now!

Fun Stuff.

2008-10-23T01:51:00.001-07:00

I recently visited my old elementary school, and found a ceramic tile that was part of a school project. It's still there, mounted in the mural on the wall! How neat. It's funny how my young self portrayed my family members. My dad look sort of strong but stern, with those big yellow eyes, and my mom is almost ridiculously cheery and whimsical - big curls, big round eyes, flouncy dress. I don't know what the devil I'm wearing -flowers, stripes, blue, purple? I was kind of a fashion-confused child, so I guess it fits, hahaha.

I just put up a BUNCH of new items in both Eventual Invention and Pied Crow - and I already sold one of them! This little journal went home already:

And I finally put up those cairn pendants I mentioned a while back, like this one:

Clickables - they take you to the listing, where you can see more photos! Or you can check out all my new faux stone jewelry or the other new journal... :)

Hand-sewn Headbands!

2008-10-23T01:33:00.001-07:00

Sounds intimidating? Not! They're really simple, once you get the hang of them. I had a really hard time finding instructions for these anywhere, so once I was able to piece together the technique I decided I had to put up a tutorial at some point. So the rest of you can see how I do it, at least. It's such a nice touch for casebound journals.

On to the tutorial!

Things you will need for sewing headbands:

--Two colors of embroidery thread. Thinner thread will be more labor-intensive, but will give you a tighter, more elegant look, too. Thicker thread will probably be too bulky for a standard book. I use about an arms' length. Knot together at the end, and thread a needle onto the other end of each thread.

--Headband core. I usually use a narrow band of thick leather, but round cord works well, too.

--Book block, ready for casing-in.

If you have some sort of clamp or something to hold the book so its spine is at a 45 degree angle to your chest, use that. I just sit with my feet up and clamp the book block between my knees! Easy.

Click on the Read More link below for full instructions, with photos! :)

Step one - use masking tape to secure your headband core along the upper edge of your book block. This picture actually shows the core a little farther away than it should be - it should sit right across the top corners of the pages. But don't worry about it too much - the sewing will pull it into the right place.

Find the top sewing hole of your first signature and thread one needle through it. You might have to poke your needle through from the other side first so you can see where that hole is. Pull the thread through to the knot.

Can you see how that thread goes? It's through the top binding hole, up along the inner spine of the first signature, behind the headband core, and forward across the top of the core.

Here we go. Wrap the thread around the core once. You should be wrapping away from your body. I'm using Black and White, you might be using different colors, but for the sake of simplicity I'm going to say Black and White. Hold your Black thread taut with one hand, and thread the needle of White behind Black right where Black peeks out of the top of the signature.

Now bring your White needle up behind itself. You can do this differently if you like - you're basically knotting the white thread around the black to secure it before you start the actual sewing of the headband.

Once you have the White thread knotted there, thread the needle under the core and lay it over the top of the black thread, like this:

Just hold everything there and take a good look at what you just did. This is important - if you don't start correctly, it won't work, and it's hard to take it all out. So check that everything is tight and secure.

Next!

I forgot to take a photo here, but fortunately this step is easy. Thread the needle back under the core, toward your body, and then wrap it around the core like this:

During that second bit, you will be looking at this:

You can see that the black thread is pinned down to the core by what you just did with White, not just laying over the top.

So at this point, your White should come from its knot at the beginning, under the core and around the FRONT of that Black thread to pin it to the core, back under the core, over the core, under the core and over the core again.

Next!

Now do it again - bring Black over White, and then thread the Black needle under the core toward your body. If you did that right, the Black thread should pin that white thread to the core, then go under the core, and hang down along the book spine. Then...

Find the signature nearest your working point and stick the Black needle through the top sewing hole!

Now thread that Black needle under the core again, so the Black thread wraps around the core.

Pull the black thread taut along the top of the pages, and... can you guess? Bring the white thread over it, to the left, pinning it to the core. Then thread the White needle under the core towards your body. Then under the core again and over so it lays along the top of the pages.

Repeat this until you reach the end of the core:

Black thread to the left over White, thread needle under core, over core and through signature hole, up along the back of the spine and pull taut over the core.

White thread over Black, thread needle under core, over core, under core, over core, pull taut.

When you get to the end, it should look like this:

And you can see that in the picture above, instead of threading the needle under the core, to the left, after I come out of the signature, I'm threading it under the core but to the right, between my last two stitches.

Once again, you can do this differently if you like - you're basically just knotting the black thread to secure it there, like this:

See? I just make a loop and knot it here. I think it's simple and quite secure, but if you find it works better a different way, let me know. :)

Then I bring the Black to the other side and knot it there, too.

Do the same thing with the White, knotting on both sides, so it looks like this.

And when you spin the book around so the page edges face you, it should look like this, with a nice little bead on the edge:

Ta-da! That's it! Very simple. I hope this has all been clear. Please feel free to ask questions in the comments! :)

Good luck!

Lots of Things to Post About....

2008-10-16T22:09:00.000-07:00

But little time. I just wanted to note that you can see I changed my tag cloud over on the right hand side from a ZoomClouds thing to a simple, html-based cloud. ZoomClouds didn't use my actual entry tags, only the entry text itself, and the links directed to a page filled with ads. All the relevant entries from my blog were down at the bottom of the page, below ads for other bookbinders! Sucky. So I did a bit of googling and found a better solution.

You can find simple, easy instructions here:

Compender: A Simple Blogger Tag Cloud Widget

It's the only one that I've found that is so fabulously simple to use. It took me all of about 15 minutes to get it installed and all the variables adjusted to my liking.

Definitely read the comments - skim over to the ones that mention adjustments to the html. They tell you how to change the number of times a tag shows up, the font size, etc. I made a couple of adjustments myself to color and text alignment, so feel free to ask if you'd like to know. :)

Sweetness.

Wildfire Season...

2008-10-14T17:18:00.000-07:00

Is here, right on time. Hello, fall! Hello, wildfires!

So here's the situation.

Hopefully that comment that "fire is moving to the southwest" is just an exaggeration. Because if that giant fire moves to the southwest, my house will be burning. Oh. Boy.

Smoots!

2008-10-14T15:16:00.000-07:00

Some of you more observant blog readers may have noticed the new gadget at the bottom of the column on the right. Now you can measure in Smoots! How cool is that. Just type any measurement - such as 50 feet, 6 inches, 20 yards, etc - into the box and hit the Measure button!

I meant to do this sooner, since October 4 (my birthday, coincidentally!) is Smoot Celebration Day, but I'm just now getting around to it.

So go ahead, try measuring the distance to your grandmother's house, or the length of your living room, or even your own height! Whenever I hit the search button, I always think of Oliver Smoot getting up, lying down, getting up, lying down, getting up, lying down....

For more about Oliver Smoot, and the Smoot measurement, check out the links below the search box. :)

Holiday Fairs

2008-10-13T20:01:00.000-07:00

Whew.

I just finished two hours of searching for local holiday craft fairs, with little to show for it. I emailed one person about an early November show, and there's a show here in my city in 2 weeks, but that's so soon! I'm worried I won't be ready. And they might be full already!

There's so much information that it's really overwhelming. I mean, I'm not set up as a real business yet - so sales tax is a mystery, and what the devil is a California Seller's Certificate? They mention these things as if everyone will know about them. I'm so new to this!

I might just have to wait until next year.

Damn, it's so frustrating!

Edit: At least I am looking into ordering some big boxes of paper for journal insides. I'm so tired of buying Strathmore drawing pads and cutting them up, then ending up with drawing pad bits that I'm unwilling to toss but unsure about what to make of them. So I went to the Paper Mill Store and found great prices. I ordered some sample packs, because it is oh-so-important for me to touch the paper and see how it takes ink and paint before buying it in bulk.

Recent Things

2008-10-11T16:49:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been another busy week. But a good one. The fall is finally (finally!) here, in classic California style. The season changes between one evening and the next morning, and suddenly you're thinking about rain boots and scarves and pumpkin pie. I know I sure have been thinking about pumpkin pie. Mmmmm.

Anyway, some shop happenings. I listed this journal, which I made a few weeks ago but never got around to putting up. It's one of my favorites so far. Different lizard skins beneath vertical windows in the cover. Very textural. It was a real killer to make - those thin windows are so hard to cover properly! I had to slice the leather vertically over the windows, then super tiny little angled slices toward the corners. The lizard skins are glued to the back of the bookboard around the windows, then covered by the endpages, further securing them. I'm quite happy with the way it came out - though I did end up with a few small glue spots on the cover. Darn!

But oh well. Each book is a learning experience! You can check out more photos in the Etsy listing.

I also made a custom peapod pendant for Pat (TattooDreams), and that shipped out today.

I had been jonesing to make some more pod jewelry lately, so I was happy to oblige Pat when she contacted me late last month. She wanted a simple little pod of spiced clay with two green beads. I didn't have any on hand, but after a little shopping I located this lovely pair of green speckled stone. Add a little brass jump ring a ta-da! Peapod. I think it's very cute. On a nice brass chain, it will be so adorable. I hope she enjoys it. I might just make myself a similar one.

So making my first custom order was very fun indeed. And here are some other things I made while I was noodling around with clay.

There are some pods there, a couple little mushrooms, flowers and other doodads that I'm not sure what to do with yet, and some faux stone cairn pendants-to-be.
I have been meaning to post up some photos of my business cards and the custom stamp I ordered from terbearco. Here we are:

See, it's very well made, with a handy place to put a label for your stamp, and as you can see below, it prints quite well, too!

And here are my business cards, from greenerprinter.com. They came out so nicely. Very simple. That's how I wanted them - too much junk or fancy images and the business information is lost. Name, phone, shop address, email - why do I need more than that?

They even have this nice recycled content label on the back. It's optional - you can get cards without it, but I'm all for recycling and especially post-consumer content, so I left it on.

All in all, a good week!

Shipping and Packaging for the Holidays

2008-10-07T08:12:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm starting to gather all my packaging supplies together for the holidays - since I have already started shopping, I figure others have too and I should be ready. I'm considering adding gift wrap to the shop, but I'm not sure how that will work. I can make the inside of the package pretty, but USPS and UPS stick labels and stickers and such all over the outside, so how can I pretty that up? Hmm.....
I still need to buy some plain brown boxes. I'm going with the natural, organic palette for packaging. I think it's classy. :)

I received this message in an email from Karen Allen, e-Consignment representative of Florence LLC, when I bought something from them on Ebay. I thought it was really funny and charming.

We do our best to hold true to a time tested shipping tradition passed down for over 5000 years :). This very intensive practice is only achieved after years of training, meditation, and deep breathing but mostly by holding our mouth just right while we concentrate. We donned special gloves and placed it into a fancy box made of magic, lined with KuKu bird feathers, tied the box with a few strands of Unicorn hair, and wrapped the whole thing in a sparkly looking faux gold leaf paper, with elm leaf inlay from Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, by the time it gets to you, that fancy stuff will most likely have been picked clean by the curious package handlers along the way. Please do not be surprised to see a plain package with your purchase inside :)

Autumn Seed Pods

2008-10-05T23:34:00.000-07:00

<-- Sweet little split seed pod!

It's one of a bunch of seed pod jewelry that I recently sold over at Eventual Invention. I even received a custom order for another pendant! It's very exciting. This line of jewelry is my very first and I had so much fun making it. It's exactly what I had in my head - organic, with a subtle palette and using natural materials with brass accents.

The creation process was really quite accidental - I explain it in the item listings in Eventual Invention, too - I was looking for some speckled clay, and I couldn't find anything in stores that matched what was in my head. So on a whim I pulled some freshly ground spices from my spice cabinet and rolled them into plain white clay, since that was what I had on hand. I figured if it works for pies it will work for jewelry! And I'm so glad. The clay smells like autumn and pumpkin pie and cinnamon and chai tea. Ohhhh it's just spectacular. The pods I already made used tigers eye stone and brown and tan wood beads for the seeds. Very autumnal in color. I made them during the summer, but I was already longing for fall. Can you tell?

So I will be making a new little pod pendant soon! I'm rather excited. :D

Today It Is My Birthday

2008-10-04T09:14:00.001-07:00

Hooray! I have lots of photos to post - of the new stamp and business cards I bought for the shop recently, two or three from our recent vacation (i shot almost exclusively pinholes on Fuji 160, so those will have to wait for a while), and miscellaneous others too. I'll get them up soon. I thought I wouldn't have much to do after I returned from vacation, but boy was I wrong. So much to get done....

Too bad I have to work today, but least the weather is delightfully stormy. Finally feels like fall! I do love October, and not just because there is chocolate cake involved. :D

To celebrate, here are a few fun birthday goodies from Etsy. Pictures are clickable and take you to the Etsy listing.

A simple and just downright cool card from tracychong, $4.

Two cute candles from Candle Confections, $8.99. Nice touch with the sprinkles!

A squishable and snuggly slice of birthday cake from crazydaisy60, $21.95. I wonder if they come in chocolate....

The most adorable birthday hat, EVER! From CrashCanStudio, $17. I totally want one!!

A very cool card-alternative, with a candle, matches, and even a built-in candle holder. From dippylulu, $11.50 for a set of three. :)

A birthday card with an awful lot of work put into it. This is the ultimate in handmade cards! $4, from AJK Artistry.

And finally, an adorable little wooden cake or cupcake-topper from kiwihandmade, $15. Too cute.

Happy birthday to me! :D

Terbearco stamp!

2008-09-25T19:52:00.000-07:00

I must say I am frankly astonished at the great custom stamp I just received from terbearco. The package was full of discount cards, goodies from other Etsy shops, nicely shipped inside a little cotton pouch and packed with tips for stamping... definitely one of the best Etsy packages I've ever received. Unbelievably nice. The stamp works brilliantly and she even included a little pumpkin stamp just in time for Halloween!

I can't recommend her highly enough!

What's busier than a bee?

2008-09-24T14:47:00.000-07:00

Because that's how busy I have been. If I was a bee, I would be calling in for backup. I'm totally, completely, ridiculously swamped.

There's the new car, of course, and on Thursday my mother got rear-ended. Hard. So there's dealing with her insurance and taking care of her, and trying to keep up with the day job, and so much more.

I haven't been making any books at all lately. But I did sell a few - these three left for new homes:

And all got rave reviews from their new owners! So that's very exciting.

I'm thinking of doing some softcover, maybe longstitch lizard skin journals in the near future. And I have a great idea for some rose-colored snakeskin I bought recently.

Hopefully I'll be back to book making very soon! :)

And yes, she is that good.

2008-09-15T02:52:00.000-07:00

Exciting and Frightening!

2008-09-13T09:46:00.000-07:00

It's heeee-eeere! My lovely new little miata. Silver and sexy. I'm thrilled, just thrilled. Joe and I took her out last night, and we were out until 12:30, teaching me to drive stick shift. I don't know how well I will do today, driving stick for the first time in traffic and with people around. It makes me slightly queasy. We'll see. I just hope I don't crash!

Also, my business cards came in! They're beautiful! I will post up some pictures soon so you can all see.

:D

Extra goodies!

2008-09-04T19:43:00.000-07:00

Woo, and I forgot! I finally ordered a logo stamp from terbearco, and some business cards from greenerprinter.com!
I really wanted to use an Etsy shop to buy my business cards from, but I couldn't find any shop that listed clear instructions for submitting artwork, or any that clearly described paper options and design options. I found a million "business card design" listings, but I already had a design. I just need the printing done! Preferably on recycled paper. So I'm glad I found greenerprinter. They use 100% recycled paper with 50% post-consumer, and paper whitened with a non-chlorine bleaching process. Hooray!

I'll be posting photos when they arrive. :D

Progress, finally!

2008-09-04T17:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally got all the unfinished books finished, put a few disconnected ideas together into books, and got everything photographed. It took me all day, but it's done! :) And anyway, a day spent bookmaking and Etsying is a pretty awesome day.

This is what my desk looked like this morning:

And here is one of the results:

It's so bright! I've been working with black so often that I wanted to do something fiercely bright. I wanted to do a little stenciling, and I wanted to use rich, deep colors. I also wanted to try using colored signature reinforcements. It came out so well, I'm definitely going to make more of this kind of journal. I had really missed using cotton fabric. It's so much easier to work with than leather. I'm particularly happy with this journal because I was able to avoid glue smudges anywhere. I am continually plagued by glue smudges.

Here are a couple other recent listings:

A black leather casebound with gold. This one has hand-sewn headbands, which I'm going to do a tutorial on soon. They're really satisfying to make. It's a really nice touch on any journal.

My little lizard minis, which you saw a few days ago:

A square coptic lizard skin mini:

Black leather coptic with lizard skin under windows. The windows were so hard to get right - the flaps of leather that curl to the inside are so small and hard to glue down. But it did come out nicely.

So there's what I've been so busy with lately. I have one more to list, but that can wait until tomorrow. As Lilli Von Schtupp might say, let's face it - I'm tired! :)

Newsish.

2008-09-02T23:50:00.000-07:00

Whoo... what a week. Most of you begin your week on Monday and end on Sunday. My week is all over the place - never the same days off. Tuesday was my Monday this week. And what a week it was. So much to do and think about.

Most likely the big mommy station wagon will be going away soon, and I will be glad to see it go. It has served me well, but I'm done with the broken air conditioner, done with the anemic engine and the DVD player I have never used, the aircraft carrier-esque handling, and the American engineering. Sorry, but I actually need all the parts on my vehicle to function as they should, and last more than a few thousand miles. Plus I have to work on the car, and I can personally assure you all that there were zero mechanics on the Saturn design team.

And I will be getting into a lovely, tiny, light, efficient little Miata. What a relief that will be. For one, I won't be spending so much on gas. And for two, I might actually enjoy driving around. Since I drive roughly 800 miles per month, that is rather important.

So anyway, I had the Etsy front page feature the other day, which was thrilling, and I've had two showcase spots recently, but those last three journals are just sitting around in the shop. I think it's bare shelf syndrome. People get uneasy when a shop only has a few items. I know I do - I always wonder what's going on in the seller's life that they only managed to list two or three things. Fortunately, I had a rather productive evening and I have two new casebounds to list, one possible coptic (I might keep it), one mini coptic, and the two eeny teeny longstitch journals.

Since I found paper mojo the other day, I have been browsing an awful lot. I decided to sit out the labor day sale, since I am still not sure exactly which papers I want to order. Such a wide selection. There are a few chiyogami papers that I am eyeing. We shall see.

I don't have any photos tonight - I may have some tomorrow, but I will leave you with ridiculously adorable photos of Max. Enjoy.

He does this all the time. He just loves that rug. Silly cat.

SQUEEE!

2008-08-31T00:10:00.000-07:00

Goodness gracious. Here I am, squealing like a little girl in the middle of the night. But I was having such a crummy evening, and LB (Lover Boy) wasn't paying much attention to me all week, we've both been so busy... anyway, you don't want to hear about all that junk. But I couldn't sleep and so, like many of you, I ended up Etsying in the middle of the night. And there it was! Eeek!

That's me, top left corner, right under Hand-Picked Items, that's my Stripes and Spots journal! I'm so thrilled. Never thought I'd make it to the front page. This is SO EXCITING! Haha, I'm such a silly girl.

Well. Then. Goodness. Anyway, it's bedtime. At least my weekend is off to a great start now. :D

Adventures in case binding.

2008-08-29T15:19:00.000-07:00

AUGHHH. What a frustrating morning.

Here's the problem. I can do coptic binding all day long, I can longstitch like crazy, but case binding... I always have issues with case binding. I can never figure out how to structure the spine. When I have my cover boards cut, and I have the hard spine piece cut, I always have problems deciding how to glue them to the card that makes up the spine hinge. So I don't have the right amount or shape of space for the book block. Then when I glue the book block into the case, I end up with a book that either won't fully close, or won't open all the way. It's a real bummer to have a beautiful book put together, with leather covers and hand-sewn headbands, sanded paper edges and snakeskin leather quarter binding - to then have the whole book be a throw-away. Curses! So frustrating.

I never have these issues when I don't use that third piece of bookboard for the hard spine. And I can't seem to get the right French groove going when I use a hard spine piece. I'll have to post up some photos so you all might be able to help me figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Left this week...

2008-08-27T18:25:00.000-07:00

I went paper shopping today, hoping to find a source for more interesting - and hopefully less machine-made - paper than I can find at JoAnns and Michaels. So Google Maps found me two possible sources - one of which is Kelly's Paper, in Westlake Village, which is near my workplace. I stopped by on the way home.

Unfortunately, I was sorely disappointed. Instead of the lovely retail paper wonderland on their website, I found a cavernous warehouse; inside were tall, beefy metal shelves stocked with boxes of inkjet paper, envelopes, and cardstock in varying shades of off-white. It was like a giant Staples stockroom.

What a let-down!

The only other option around here is Papyrus, which I will duly visit, but I don't have high hopes.

Happier news, here's what left the shop recently. So far, the reviews are great! I'm so excited their new owners are happy.

Books and bobs.

2008-08-26T09:44:00.001-07:00

Two more journals will be leaving for a new home today. Which leaves both shops rather empty! Fortunately, I have lots of fabulous ideas for new books. Last night I only had a moment to work but I did make a couple of teeny weeny lizard skin longstitch journals. I think they will be listed as pendants.

I like the mini journals that are so popular right now, I must admit I could make them all day long, they're so fun and easy. Something so small is nice for instant gratification. It only takes about twenty minutes from start to finish (if you work from start to finish, that is. I usually don't). However, I always end up wondering what in the world they're good for. They're nice for little teeny works of art, like this one from meowstro....

Perhaps as handy illustration portfolios, like this one from behappy...

As earrings, if light and sweet enough, like these from KupoKiley...

Or as thank-you gifts, or goodbye presents from coworkers or friends...

Or as love letters, all wrapped up in one place...

I always like my journals to be practical, not just interesting to make or look at. So I think their best use is for pendants in my case. Mine are a little bit bigger and heavier than Kiley's, and I'm not nearly as talented as behappy or meowstro.

Anyway. So I have some bookmaking to do in the near future. Hooray!

Unexpectedly good week!

2008-08-23T17:49:00.000-07:00

At least in the Etsy world. I sold three journals, three of my very favorites, too. Although it's nice to sell them (very nice - cause I'm broke and am running out of paper!) it is always sad to see them depart for their new homes. I wrap them up very nicely in their best outfits, with tissue paper and ribbon and lovely tags, but I still feel a bit like a mother sending her babies out into the world. I do hope their new owner loves them as much as I do. I'm sure she will.

Awhile back I made this little journal, my very first try at coptic headbands.

You will notice, if you are self-taught like me, that there is not one tutorial on coptic headbands anywhere on the web. Not even in google book search! So I had to teach myself, and I am rather proud of the result.

However, one of the ends got pulled too tight, so there's a bit out of place, and somehow the journal picked up a few dark stains on one cover, so it's a just-for-me journal. But I love the color scheme and the cool wrinkly wave-paper so much that I'm sure I'll be doing another for the Etsy shop.

Anyway, for you budding book-binders, here's what helped me learn.

These are a couple of great close-up photos of the headbands, where you can sort of make out what the process might be like.

http://flickr.com/photos/92439741@N00/2124721790
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/lilihall/Bookbinding/photo#5097308935991039186

But this photo was absolutely instrumental. This was the key for me, to figuring out how the stitch is worked.
http://flickr.com/photos/zoopress_studio/2530492929/in/set-72157603237252656/

So have a look at these, and in a day or two I'll be doing another of these and I'll do a step-by-step on how it's done. Or at least, how I do it. Best of luck to you. :)

2008-08-22T18:22:00.000-07:00

New projects, new materials. Very exciting!
I put up a lizard-skin journal in the Etsy shop the other day, and although it hasn't received too many views or any hearts for that matter, I'm just so excited about working with reptile skin. I just got a new pack in the mail. :D They're all by-product scraps, but many have really gorgeous patterning and I can't wait to make more journals with them.

First, however, I have two hardbound projects in linen to finish. One field journal with an integrated linen-covered box around it, and these tiny little triplets: Only two by two inches. Very cute. I have this idea to make a box for them, perhaps with an envelope-style closure like my green moss journal in the last post. I haven't thought of the right box for them yet. Hmm.

Welcome and bienvenido!

2008-08-16T10:38:00.000-07:00

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