Tag Archives: papers

February 26, 2012 · 10:52 pm

Back to Work

…. or rather Back to Play.

The past week has been spent with insurance claims, car salesmen, doctors, etc., etc.  It’s a relief to be able to go back to the fun parts.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time designing my next set of books and I’ll be sharing the results here.  I’ve also started a page on How to Design a Book, or at least the way I usually do it. This week I’ve been starting by choosing the outside covers first, but at other times I’ve started with a title, an illustration, endpapers or even the paper I wanted to use as the textblock.  Flexibility is a good thing!

I’ll give you a spoiler here. These are the papers I’ve chosen for my next batch of books.  If you want to see the choices I made, just follow this link.

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February 18, 2012 · 6:30 pm

Choices

A friend recently gave me some pieces of papyrus and I am puzzling over what to do with them.  The sheets are heavier than what I use for book covers, but I don’t know if they are strong  or flexible enough to use on my boxes.  It might be interesting to try marbling one sheet, although that could be a bit of a waste as the beauty of the sheets is in the weave-like texture and the natural fibers.  That might be lost under the marbled colors.  What to do?    I think I’ll try one piece as book covers and see how it works.

Next question: what to use for endpapers?  I had some dark blue and gold hieroglyphic paper, but there’s not enough except for a tiny book and I don’t want to order more.  I have some white and gold with an Egyptian motif, but it’s a little too shiny and too over the top for the papyrus.  I think I’ll have to look further.

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February 12, 2012 · 5:46 pm

Towers are Fun

Last week I decided to make some more of my Treasure Towers for sale in my shop on Etsy.  I think the part I enjoy the most is picking out the papers to use.  Usually, I start with the outside, but not always.  I find that I prefer to make four boxes at a time even if they are different size.  Doing the same actions “assembly line” fashion just works best.  Not more than four, or I get bored!

But back to choosing.  My first was very uncharacteristic, I didn’t use my own marbled paper.  I had a piece of Italian paper with large butterflies that I wanted to use.  The pattern is really too big for my books.  I had trouble finding papers for the inside since the colors weren’t a good match.  I finally found two papers that had patterns that reminded me of the scales on the wings  of butterflies.  I made the top of the same butterfly pattern as the outside.

The other papers were a bit easier, I knew I wanted to use some maps I’d marbled.  The last tower was a recently marbled sheet that I was excited about.

I have more towers here.  I have a page about making my boxes and towers here or you can click the link at the top of the page that says, ” Boxes & Other Creations”.

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