Emily & Kevin's Wedding Album

Congrats to Emily & Kevin, this is their day! I had the pleasure of meeting a great friend of theirs last year, and he got in touch with me about making something special for their wedding gift.

 They are having a Victorian themed wedding and had custom silhouettes made to match their motif.

We decided on this swirling damask patterned paper for the endsheets which added a nice elegant touch.

Pretty soon all of these pages will be full of photos from their happy day! Best Wishes!

Racing Rivals, Illustrated by Josh Holtsclaw

Image courtesy of Amazon and my talented husband
My husband illustrated a children's book and it's on shelves today! Hooray! We called ahead just to be sure, and we're headed to Barnes and Noble tonight to pick up a few copies. I'm excited to take one apart and fancy it up into a hardcover version.

I'm writing from a new city! We moved to Kansas City, MO about a month ago and have been settling in quite nicely. The bindery is almost in tip-top shape and I have a few projects under my belt in the new space. I've had my camera out and have been snapping away, so I'll have plenty of photos to share in the weeks to come.

Pickle Dish Progress

I'm working on a pickle dish quilt for Sarah's baby Emmalyn. It's my first time trying paper piecing and I love it!

I'm following the pattern from Kaffe Fassett's Quilt Romance book, but we picked out a different color scheme that will match Emma's nursery. Almost all of these pieces are finished now, so I'll have Sarah and baby come over soon to help me arrange all of the pieces!

Paper Souvenirs from India

My friend Caroline recently returned from a trip to India where she spent time traveling with two of her friends from college. I couldn't wait to hear her stories when she got back, so I eagerly went over to her place as soon as I could. I felt like a little kid at story time as I sat cross-legged on her couch listening to her adventures!

They did so many amazing things. They had daily cups of chai and dined on delicious food everyday, rode elephants, explored the jungle by foot, rented a house boat, went to antique markets, saw amazing sights, visited paper stores, and came back home with lovely henna hands.

And look! She brought treasures to share! The Hindi-English newspaper bag held all of these lovely goodies.

Hand printed and quilled cards, envelopes, a wooden stamp, and a folding paper star. Absolutely my kind of treasure!

Thanks so much for sharing your tales and souvenirs, Caroline!

Little Leather Library: Rebound

I was eying a stack of Little Leather Library books as I was browsing a vintage shop with my mother-in-law around the holidays, but decided that they could find a home with someone else, because I was looking for a little text block that I could put a new cover on and it wouldn't feel right to take the books apart when they were functioning just fine, otherwise! We ventured toward the back of the shop, at the promise of a sale section, and low and behold there were a few of these books that were falling apart with their covers detached! My mother-in-law scooped them up, and away she sped to the register. On Christmas morning I had three little broken books to unwrap, and they are such treasures!

I've started working on the book in the photo in between projects. I took the sewing apart and reinforced and re-hinged some of the pages with Japanese tissue. The paper on the left will be made into endsheets, and the leather on the right is for the new cover. The poems inside are so sweet, it'll be exciting to finish the binding so I can sit down and read all of them!

Recent BBB News

I have a blog post up over on the Guild of Book Workers blog. I've shared a few photos of my trip to Relma, the fabulous bookbinding store in Paris.

George from Tedorigawa Bookmakers kindly interviewed me for his podcast a few months ago. I've been shy to share it, there's always something funny about hearing your own recorded voice, especially since it seems I'm prone to giggling. It was a pleasure to speak with him and fun to connect with another book lover all the way in Japan!

Annette from CraftStew.com wrote to let me know that she included my Star Book Tutorial in their "How to Bind a Book" post. The post is full of all sorts of links to great tutorials.

I just read a great article about Mark Andersson, my instructor for most of my time at NBSS, and it is a fantastic read. The article, from the Explorer Newspaper, is actually an old one, so I either missed it the first time around, or it's so well written that it feels new every time you read it! Josh made the above illustration for us to put on a poster that we could sign when Mark was leaving NBSS and headed for the land of rattlesnakes. He always told us tall tales of bookbinding in the trenches, or whilst riding on a motorcycle, or who remembers what? Sometimes when you don't have an awl handy the next best thing is gonna be bullets.

Paper Quilt Cards

Around Christmastime I started arranging some of my many itty bitty scraps of paper into tiny 2.5" x 2.5" paper quilt squares. I didn't do this with any specific purpose in mind, but just as a little break from some of my more tasking projects.

I decided to adhere them to some heavy paper and turn them into blank notecards. I've given them all little names for fun!

Quilted Northern.

Moulin Orange.

Lily Pads.

Terminator meets Tron.

 Triclops.

Would you like one? I just have these five, so leave a request in the comments with your email address & I'll get in touch and send one to you! You can send it on to a friend or I can write a little note inside.

Vintage Paper Lace

Over a year ago I was browsing Etsy for some vintage ephemera, and fun papery delights that I might use in the bindery. I stumbled upon this spool of vintage paper lace and immediately called my friend Lisa (fellow papery delights lover, you know, it's a technical term) to see if she wanted to split the spool. And, of course she did! Wouldn't you?!

Since the spool arrived, packaged in a sweet box, it has been my bench-top staple. I haven't used it in a binding, but I've been using it on just about everything that's in need of wrapping! And as it turns out, paper lace is a bit like the old Lay's slogan. I can't get by with just one color.

Several months ago I added these gems to my collection.

They have a way of making simple packages feel so special!

All of the paper ribbon I've purchased has come from an Etsy shop called A Bohemian Market. The proprietor, Carole, is friendly and helpful. We've only ever communicated online, but her kind personality can't help but shine through in her words. I was excited to see that she had listed some new white lace ribbon in her shop and wrote to her last week to check on availability of some other colors... it was my lucky day! The white and peach above, as well as the orange below are all recent acquisitions.

Aren't all of the eyelets lovely? Most of the little shapes are punched out, but not all, so if I ever need a little bit of quick confetti I can just run my fingers across some length of the ribbon to loosen the remaining pieces.

By itself, or dressed up, Carole's paper lace would make a nice addition to any supply box! As I write this, her shop is full, so feel free to take a peek!

The nitty gritty, as written on the large spools: Maxi Paper Lace, Ideal for Bows, Packages, Floral Arrangements, & Trimmings, 3" Wide 12 yds Maxwell Wellington Greensboro, GA,  Made in the U.S.A.

Cecil's Magic Yellow Pants: A Custom Project

Recently, I had the opportunity to be a part of a family's special project. A grandmother had carefully illustrated a series of flat watercolor pages to create a delightful story for her granddaughter. It was my task to take the flat sheets and hinge them together so I could bind them into a book.

The book is about a real cat named Cecil who has a patch of yellow fur that makes it look like he's wearing pants! These pants make anything possible for this fun-loving cat, however, it is revealed that the pants aren't magic, nor are they even real! The moral of the story is that being special and doing special things comes from within. Don't these illustrations make you smile? I just love Cecil on his magic carpet!

It almost looks like a duplicate, but this smaller version of the book was made so grandmother could have her story on hand when the grandchildren visit! This version was made using scans of the original illustrations.

Thanks to Cecil's family for including me in your special project! It was a pleasure!