I want to show off some lovely pastel rainbow journals I made using Boko Undo Suminagashi inks (affiliate link) – and before you leave a comment, YES they are very light in color once they dry! If you are looking for bold, vibrant colorful marbled paper, you need to try a different style of marbling […]
Summertime memory: coming back from the beach during the heat of the day to eat ice cream sandwiches and watch “Saved By the Bell” reruns at my grandparent’s house. And now I live in the same house! But…no TV…and also I’m lactose intolerant now, so no ice cream. But hey, one out of three ain’t […]
Paper from West Palm Beach While I didn’t marble the paper on this book cover myself, I won’t forget where I bought it from. It was a hot afternoon in September and we were driving past West Palm Beach for a follow up appointment for my husband’s Lasik eye surgery. We planned to stop at […]
Inspiration strikes… The thing I love most about these journals is how well the two black and purple papers go together, even though I aquired them years apart. This is certainly a case of me being inspired by my materials. When I get stuck, or run out of bookbinding ideas, a quick trip to (one […]
I’m so excited to unveil a new style of handmade artist book. It features a luxurious Japanese silk book cloth cover, with precision circle inlay that features stunning, one-of-a-kind marbled paper. I like the idea of a book containing a hidden surprise, so I used the same beautiful paper for the inside endpapers as well. […]
This is a very special journal I made all in one go. By that I mean, I was “in the crunch” for at least 8 hours putting the finishing touches on it, adding gold leaf, cutting out birds with an exacto knife, hand-painting in tiny bird beaks. Also somehow I managed to make it without […]
These handmade Temari Ball journals are kind of meta-handmade, because not only is the Chiyogami cover paper handmade in Japan, the colorful toy balls on the cover are also a depiction of a beautiful Japanese handicraft called Temari (手ã¾ã‚Š) Balls. Temari translates as “hand ball” and supposedly were sometimes used in games, but the idea […]
This gorgeous crane paper is one of my new favorites! A big flock of white cranes flies across clear aquamarine sky, with golden swirling clouds. The aqua color perfectly compliments the other paper I used here, a vintage chiyogami pattern of golden clouds on a peach sunset sky. If you look closely you can also […]
Don’t you love how the cherry blossoms coordinate on the two pieces of paper I used on the covers of this “twin journal” ? If you use chiyogami or yuzen paper as often as I do, you start to see trends and themes emerge. (All of a sudden I just pictured someone talking about the […]
Feast your eyes on the rich, saturated colors of these beautiful lay-flat coptic stitch journals that I finished last week. In addition to Japanese Chiyogami paper, I also made a couple journals using some of my favorite new papers featuring hand marbled and hand stamped designs. While their patterns are totally opposite, something about the […]
I love small cute things and the alpine strawberries I’ve been growing the past two years totally fit the bill. They grow perfectly here on Cape Cod (did you know that Cape Cod was the top producer of strawberries east of the Mississippi at the turn of the 20th century?) which is fortunate because I […]
This spring someone gave me a book of leather samples – I’m not sure where they are from, maybe an upholsterer – but they came in two shades of brown and a beautiful bright red. I had four peices total, of really nice quality fairly thick leather, and I was trying to think of what […]
My sister Martha finds all kinds of great things when she’s out and about sifting through flea markets, thrift stores and estate sales and she sent me this gorgeous hand-painted paper that decorates the cover. This journal was sewn in a style of binding called the Coptic stitch, which not only looks beautiful but also […]
I purchased these adorable thank you cards from the Paper Tyger in Falmouth, MA – they are super duper cute! You can buy them on their website too – they are letter-pressed on 100% recycled paper and made in New York. The letterpress gives the card a nice embossed feel. The only strange thing I […]
Here’s Ian’s finished journal – the cover illustration was hand-drawn by me and then inlaid into the cover (I very carefully cut the faux leather cover to allow the drawing to sit flush with the cover of the book). The dragon is breathing gold-leaf fire! You can check out photos of the re-covering process here […]
After staying up late hawkishly watching an online auction for a Lassco Corner Rounder CR-20 , I was able to swoop in at the last minute (literally 45 seconds) and win it at the great price of $62! New, they retail for $150. The Corner Rounder does just what the name says – it can […]
When I was working in a library a few summers ago I came across a beautiful old map of Boston from 1858 – I made several copies of it, and one of them I used on the cover of this book. After transferring the image on to silk using a solvent transfer method, I painted […]
