Books and more books!

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

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...

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

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!

<--- (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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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. :)

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!

Now you have NO excuse. VOTE!

Tomorrow is The Day!

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!