Booklaces

What do you get when you turn an itty-bitty bound book into a necklace for on-the-go note jotting?

A booklace!

If you check out my Book and Journal Making board on Pinterest, you will see that I have a bit of an obsession with tiny books, and book necklaces.  When I checked out Erin Zamrzla's Handmade Books for Everyday Adventures from the local library, one of the first projects I worked on was her Necklace Book.

The project uses a very simple account book binding technique, which Erin describes very clearly in words and diagrams at the back of her book.

After cutting the cover and pages to size, only two holes are required at the top, with some simple threading with cord. (Her instructions call for nylon coated bead stringing wire, but I used stretchy cord that I already had in my supply stash.)

I added a little charm to one of the books for a little extra...charm!

The pages are tiny, but legitimately large enough to jot down a phone number, address, or book title you want to keep in mind.

I had a seven-year-old girl who was more than willing to model what the finished book necklaces look like!

Stay tuned, because I have many more book-making projects to share in the future.  For projects completed in the past, take a look at the Drawing Near posts labeled Book Making.

Have Journal, Will Travel

It's not everyday that I find a craft project involving an empty toilet paper tube that I like.

I mean, I'm as big a fan of upcycling as the next guy; I even have an entire Pinterest board dedicated to upcycling projects.

But an empty toilet paper tube?

Leave it to book artist Gwen Diehn to come up with a toilet paper tube project I feel comfortable sharing!

I created this Roll-Up Travel Journal using instructions from Gwen in a book from The Weekend Crafter series, entitled, Books and Journals: 20 Great Weekend Projects.

The design allows the little journal to be thrown into a backpack or purse for an impromptu weekend getaway, when you might want to catch some thoughts or sketches quickly on paper while on-the-go.  After all, it comes with its own protective case!  And that is where the toilet paper tube comes into play:

You slide the journal (made with a corrugated cover) out of the tube...

And find a complete bound journal inside!

The journal inside is made with a simple pamphlet stitch, but the design is made more interesting by including a window cutaway in the cover.  I couldn't resist a peek through my window through my window...if you see what I mean:

Gwen pointed out in her directions that you could tie a cord around the tube lengthwise in order to tie it onto your belt loop while you hike or sightsee.  It is ready to pop in and out of its case for on-the-go use!

Back in it goes!

A very respectable use for our empty toilet paper tubes, don't you think?

(Okay, so there might be at least THREE PINS on my Upcycle Pinterest board involving empty toilet paper tubes.  I confess...they can come in handy in the crafting world!)

Adventures in Jewelry-Making

If you read my Living Stones blog during my Drawing Near hiatus, you are familiar with the Word of the Year group that I belong to.  Each of our members has chosen a Word for the Year, and we are meeting face-to-face four times during 2016 to share our progress and our projects, and offer each other encouragement.  Every month in between meetings, we are emailing a partner, and responding to prompts that keep us thinking about our words; some of us are also keeping journals to record our experiences with our words.

During the month of March, we had a kind of "choose-your-own-adventure" prompt, with several project options.  One of the possibilities was to make our own piece of jewelry that featured our word in some way.  Though I've dabbled in a few jewelry-making projects (enough to have purchased many of the tools and supplies associated with jewelry-making...ha!), I don't consider jewelry my strong suit.  I figured that with a little help from Pinterest, though, I would be able to identify a project within my skill boundaries.

I scanned my Jewelry Projects Pinterest board, and came across a link to Adrianne's book page necklace project at Happy Hour Projects.  It sent me dashing to my supply stash, as I remembered certain creative supplies that I've been hoarding, unused, for probably eight years.

These are Inkssentials Memory Glass and Frames from Ranger.  The packaging itself gave me an idea for my project:  I would choose one of my vintage photos, cut out the definition of CONTENTMENT (my Word for the Year) from one of my dictionaries, and create a necklace that melded the ideas from Adrianne's post with the Ranger packaging.

My first step was to search my photo collection for faces that spoke "contentment" to me.  There were several strong contenders in my collection:

Even though I didn't end up using these, I just had to share these lovely, contented faces from the past.

In the end, I went in an entirely different direction.  I have two pages of "Transparent Winged Cuties" produced by ArtChix Studio (also purchased many, many years ago!), and I thought one of the figures would be perfect to use since the dictionary definition could then show through.

I did a simple bit of measuring, cutting, and layering between the glass slides before popping the whole thing into the frame, creating the main part of my contentment-themed necklace.  My next step was to follow Adrianne's directions for adding a "hope" charm and a bead at the top.

Sweet, don't you think?

To read more about our April Word for the Year meet-up, you can visit my Living Stones blog post here!

I enjoyed this project so much, and had all the tools and materials out and ready, so I made one additional necklace with a vintage photo.

Meet Gertrude and Curt.  I didn't make those names up!  The names were written on the back of the photo, and I was able to use them on the backside of this pendant:

To embellish this necklace I used a bead and a "bliss" charm that reflected the happy faces of young love so many decades ago!

If I manage to find more of these frames and glass, I could imagine making many, many more pendants from my collection of vintage photos.

What do you think?  What materials from your stash would make their way onto your pendants?

Adventures in Bookbinding

My cabinet card sketchbook, along with the book that helped me to create it

I took the plunge, inspired by the recent Philadelphia Art Book Fair, and got my bookbinding resources off the shelf and onto my work table.

For my first project, I've created the cabinet-card sketchbook from Jeannine Stein's Re-bound, in which she encourages the use of recycled and re-purposed materials for creating books.

The cover of my hand-bound book is a cabinet card purchased from the Allentown Paper Show.

My husband thinks she looks quite a bit like one of his ancestors; I think she looks amazingly similar to the woman that Jeannine used for her example in the book:

I see the man in the cabinet card on the back cover as a kind of spouse or companion of the woman on the front:

It wasn't until I had the project underway that I realized that I was actually binding three different books for the project, all using a stab binding technique.  Inside the outer cover are two smaller books.  On one side, the book has drawing paper, while on the other side the book has notepaper.

Each pad has a sturdy piece of cardboard at the back, which fits into a sleeve I made on the inside of each cover.  The pad slips in and out of the sleeve, and I can make new pads to replace them when I am finished, so that the cabinet card cover is re-usable.

Ingenious design, no?

I was thinking about giving this blog post the title: "Bookbinding is not for the faint of heart."

But through the process of binding this rather complicated book, I realized that there is definitely a simple secret to making the activity easier:  punch yourself large enough holes so that you are not fighting your needle's way through each one!

An awl is a fine way to start, but the Japanese screw punch is really indispensable for the bookbinder or book artist.  I'm no expert, but as a beginner, I'm finding that these are a few of my favorite things:

My favorite adhesive (UHU glue stick), Japanese screw punch, awls for
punching small holes, ruler, sharp utility knife

I also discovered that the first time through a new binding technique can be a little rough, while the second time through is exponentially easier.  For example, I ripped the cardboard backing on one of the books that fits inside my cabinet card book, and I went ahead and bound it with no strong backing, thinking I could get away that.  Once I did the other inside book, and saw how much better it fit into the sleeve with the cardboard backing, I realized I had to re-do the first one, and do it properly this time.  This time the stitching went so much more quickly! I finally knew what I was doing, and had done it a couple of times before.  There is a bit of a learning curve, but the patience required to catch on is worth it in the end!

And, really, isn't that pretty much true of any creative endeavor?

I'm on a bit of a bookbinding kick, it seems, so there may be a lot more where this came from!

Basic Bookbinding for Beginners with Seth Apter

Seth Apter, at the beginning of class

My final workshop at the CREATE Mixed-Media Art Retreat was a three-hour introductory bookbinding class with Seth Apter.  I was so excited for this class, since I have been wanting to try making my own books for a long time.  Though I've purchased various books on the subject, I just really needed someone to walk me through the steps to jump-start the process.  Seth's workshop was just what I needed!

One of my classmates, at work on her binding

Seth studied bookbinding at the Center for Book Arts in New York, which trained him to be very exact and precise in the bookbinding process.  Now, though, he describes himself as "a bookbinding rebel"; when it comes to cutting with a blade as opposed to freehand cutting with scissors, for example, he said, "I can't be bothered!"  He told us that he wanted to make the process "do-able" for us, and he succeeded in doing just that.

Bookmaking in progress!

After introducing us to a list of key bookbinding terms, Seth led us through the steps needed to create accordion fold books, the pamphlet stitch, and a simple form of Japanese stab binding.  He was hoping that we would have a chance to create one book of each kind following his instructions, and then create a second book of each kind to help build our "muscle memory," so we would be more likely to remember the steps.  We did not have time to create those second books, but he sent us home with all the materials we needed to make them on our own.  And, thank goodness, I took copious notes to take me through the binding processes back here at home!

Another classmate at work on her books

To show you what an effective instructor Seth was, I will show you the books I created for the class, as well as the books I've created since coming home.  What a great craft for those of us who enjoy immediate gratification!  It didn't take me long at all to amass a whole pile of hand-bound mini-books.

First, we created an accordion-fold book, and I was able to come home with Seth's materials to create a second one:

There is no doubt that the bookmaking process is majorly facilitated by having someone pre-cut all of the necessary pieces!

Second, we learned the pamphlet stitch, which is super-simple, easy to remember, and highly useful.

It's so simple, in fact, that I quickly ended up with quite a stack of little pamphlet-stitched books!  I especially like this tiny one:

And I made my first effort to attach beads as part of my binding here:

I enjoyed digging into my stash of hand-painted papers to create my books covers!

Even my five year old got in on the book-making action, creating a half-circle book (which I thought was brilliant!) and asking me to stitch the binding for her.

Finally, after a couple "false starts," I managed to master the simple version of Japanese stab binding that we worked on in class:

I kind of love the paper I made with my gear stencil!

I used scrapbook paper as a cover for this one.

The black and white cover is the one I completed in class.

Now I've pulled out all those art books with bookbinding instructions, and I feel empowered to try them all!  I know the lingo and I understand the basic process, and I'm excited to expand my repertoire of bookbinding options.  Many thanks to Seth Apter for getting me started down this path!

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If you have not yet entered my giveaway, please visit the previous post to enter.  Please remember to include in your comment the art retreat workshop you would most enjoy taking!  I'll announce a winner on August 1, 2013.

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I have one final art retreat post to share, giving you a peek at the Artists' Faire and my hotel room art studio set-up!  See you soon.

Tiny Tarnished Tomes with Kari McKnight Holbrook (and a Giveaway!)

Saturday evening at the CREATE Mixed Media Art Retreat in Somerset, New Jersey, brought me to the workshop, "Tiny Tarnished Tomes," with Kari McKnight Holbrook, known on her blog as The Backporch Artessa.

Kari McKnight-Holbrook

First, we had an opportunity to make our own molds for polymer clay, using a product called Knead-a Mold.  Then, the majority of our time was spent in creating the front and back covers for our tiny books, using countertop samples from the hardware store (think:  little rectangles of formica) and Sculpey polymer clay.  Kari provided us with molds and stamps to make impressions and designs with our clay.

The front of my finished "tiny tarnished tome."

The back of my finished "tiny tarnished tome."

We gave our covers an aged effect by using metal coatings in our choice of bronze, copper, or iron.  (I chose the copper finish.)  We then spritzed on a product to create the patina-ed look.  The brand we used was called Sculpt Nouveau.

Once our covers were bound and in place, we had only a bit of workshop time left to sew our pages into place.  I was new to the bookbinding process, and would have liked a little more time to learn what I was doing, and find out some more options for adding buttons and beads to decorate my spine.  Kari graciously stayed late with us, so that we were all able to complete our projects.

Kari gave us a couple of priceless tips regarding bookbinding supplies.  She uses hockey tape from a sporting goods store as a binding tape; you can imagine how durable it must be considering its intended purpose.  And she uses floss threaders (like you use when flossing your teeth!) with her thread and beads when she is binding her books.  Brilliant!

This workshop exposed me to some interesting new products, and showed me a new use for polymer clay.  I thought it was very cool to use it in the creation of a book cover.

As a further bonus, Kari offered a drawing for door prizes!  And I won!  I came away with some of her own polymer artist stamps, which are based on drawings from her sketchbook.  They can be used easily as traditional rubber stamps, but are also constructed with polymer clay and encaustics in mind.

My door prize!

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Because I registered for three workshops at the retreat, I received an official CREATE tote bag, filled with several fabulous and artful goodies.  There were two bottles of high flow acrylics from Golden, an amazing PITT artist pen big brush, a bottle of acrylic glaze from the Silks line of LuminArte, a pair of multi-purpose titanium scissors from Fiskars, a molding mat by ColorBox, a collage pack put together by Art Camp For Women, and a copy of PAGES magazine by Cloth Paper Scissors.  I felt like I was at the Academy Awards, getting my goodie bag!

On Sunday morning, as I munched on my croissant, I saw a group of women standing over a nearby table, and my antennae went up.  When I walked over, I saw that there were goodie bag extras available for people to take for free!  I thought of you, my wonderful readers, and knew that I wanted to offer you a giveaway opportunity.

Giveaway loot!

If you would like to win a copy of PAGES magazine, a molding mat for use especially with polymer clay, and a collage pack from Art Camp for Women, please leave a comment on this post.  In order to be entered into the drawing, please tell me what kind of class you would most like to take if you were attending an art retreat next week.  Would it be a sketch class, watercolor, art journaling, bookbinding, jewelry-making, oil painting, acrylics, photography, fiber arts?  Something else?  I'd love to know what you are most interested in exploring right now in your creative life.

Please leave your comment by July 31, 2013, and I will publish the winner on August 1, 2013.  Good luck!

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If you did not see my first post about the CREATE Mixed-Media Art Retreat, click here to read about my drawing and watercolor workshop with Jane LaFazio!

And come back soon for my final post, telling you all about the Friday night Artists' Faire, and my Basic Bookbinding for Beginners class with Seth Apter!