New Rush Project

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.

Recent Things

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!