Tag Archives: Books

June 8, 2012 · 6:43 pm

Finished Books

I finished the books that I had started in the last post.  No major disasters and I’m happy with the results.  You can see the complete process in photos on this page.

Here are the completed books.

Finished Books

The three in the back row are the ones that have Clay themes.  The first is “Lady Luck”, for the duet that Clay and Dee Snider did of “Luck Be a Lady Tonight.”  It has an Italian paper with antique playing cards on the covers and endpapers that I hand-marbled.

Lady Luck

 

Lady Luck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book with title and endpapers.

 

 

 

The second book was a tribute to the version of “Lean on Me” that Clay sang on the finale.

Always Tomorrow

I titled it “Always Tomorrow” for the spirit of always going toward the next thing.  I think the pattern on the marbled covers reflects  upward aspirations.

Always Tomorrow

The endpapers are made from some wonderful Italian decorative paper that shows all the months of the year with typical activities for each month in various Italian towns.

The last book has a cover of papyrus, so I had to give it a a desert theme.  Of course,  papyrus actually grows along rivers, but I associate it with desert countries. The only song I could think of was “Get Here” which has the line “…cross the desert …” so that gave me the title for the book.  The endpapers are a yellow and brown swirl pattern that reminds me a sandstorms and deserts.

So this was a good week for me.  Now I think I’ll move on to those portfolios and notebooks I was playing with in my last post.

 

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under bookbinding

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

May 28, 2012 · 6:49 pm

New Projects – Notebooks and Clay Books

I’ve two new projects this week.  I have no idea which one I’ll finish, but here they are.

The first is my new portfolio and new cover for a replaceable note pad.

 

More pictures and information about the notebook and portfolio can be found here.

 

My second project is in honor of Clay Aiken’s outstanding performance on the recent Celebrity Apprentice show.  I have done some Clay books in the past and have given them away, sold them or donated them to the National Inclusion Project.     Here are some of my older Clay books.

This week, I’ll be working on four books.  The first one is for the duet Clay recorded with Dee Snider on “Dee Does Broadway”, “Luck Be A Lady” and it is titled “Lady Luck.”

Lady Luck

The second book is a tribute to Clay’s song on the finale and it is titled, “Always Tomorrow”.

The last Clay book is a throwback to a song Clay sang at a Golfing for Inclusion event. It’s titled “Cross the Desert”.

Cross the Desert

Only dedicated Clay fans will be able to identify the song or the occasion.  The fourth book in non-Clay and is a holdover from an older batch.

 

I’ve set up a separate page for the books so I can comment and show you the books as they develop.  For general information on how I make my books, please see my pages on making books which start here.

If you have any ideas for themes or titles for more books, please add them to the comments.

 

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under bookbinding, Craft design

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

April 11, 2012 · 3:12 pm

Pain in the Mouth: Real Life Interupts


Sometimes one just has to do what one has to do. Today I had the pleasure of visiting the dentist to have a crown replaced. Physically, we’re talking pain here, it is no where near as bad as having a large cavity excavated or having a new crown done.  It will still wipe me out for the rest of today and most of tomorrow. In two weeks I’ll have the temporary crown replaced with the permanent one.  Don’t know why they call them permanent when I seem to be replacing them all the time. It’s not only a pain in the mouth, but an even larger pain in the wallet.

I had fun yesterday making my new hanging books, but right now I’m not thinking well at all, so I’ll just let you enjoy the picture.

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Life

Tagged as , , , , , ,

April 6, 2012 · 11:40 am

Off On a Tangent: from box to book

I really thought my next project would be a different style of box, but the road took a twist.  A few days ago I bought a book on how to make 100 different books.  As usual with this type of book, most of the designs explained were in the genre of “Artist Books”. Books in weird shapes, with pop-ups or folded pages, beads dangling or cleverly designed around artwork.  They are wonderful to look at and explore.  Unfortunately, I don’t enjoy making them. My “artist books” tend to look either like a kindergarten project gone awry or something designed by the Mad Hatter on his way down the rabbit hole.

I prefer functional books, just like my preference for functional boxes.  After a lifetime of collecting non-utilitarian objects, I’m all about function and use these days.  Anyway, the book I bought did have a bunch of “real” books with sewn bindings and hard covers.  There were a few that caught my eye and I even tried out one.   (See more in the Book section on this page.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While I was plotting out some possible designs, the Arts Center called to say that they needed more towers. So all plans on hold while I make a few more towers for them! Such is life.

Here are the the quickie towers I did over the weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think I mixed up the yellow boxes and put them into the wrong green backgrounds.  Whoops!  Not sure though and it’s too late to do anything about it.

Here are the two yellow/green towers.  Still not sure.

I also discovered that Etsy has an app that lets me put a gallery from my store on this site.  I’ve put it here as a test.

 

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under bookbinding, Boxes and Towers, Craft design

Tagged as , , , , ,

March 18, 2012 · 8:19 am

Well, Almost Finished

Took the books out of the press and here they are:

They all looked really nice until I realized that  the back endpaper in the map book was upside down!  My endpapers rarely have directionality and I never noticed.  Sigh.

Towers are in good shape, well, at least so far.  Haven’t finished the boxes for them yet, but have cut and folded the paper so it’s just folding and gluing them into place.

Here’s a look at the outsides:

You can see them all at the page onMaking Towers.

Some of these books and towers will be for sale in my shop at Etsy, Losing Her Marbles.

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under bookbinding, Boxes and Towers, Marbled Paper

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

March 11, 2012 · 10:56 pm

Finished

Well, I did it.  Finished the four books today and even started on some towers.  Good feeling of accomplishment.  The books are in the press overnight so tomorrow morning will be the final verdict.  There’s always  some trepidation when I take the books out for a final check.  That’s when I spot the bit of glue that somehow wound up on the front cover or I notice that the square isn’t quite right or the endpapers are 1/32 of an inch off line. It is quite difficult to salvage a book that isn’t quite right and impossible if it is a real mess.  Better to chuck it and start over.  Fortunately, it doesn’t happen very often.

Tomorrow I’ll take the final pictures and add more to the various pages – Designing & Making a Book.

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under bookbinding

Tagged as , , , ,

March 10, 2012 · 10:18 pm

Catching Up

This week I’ve been working on the four books that I’ve been documenting on the Design and Making a Book step two & step three pages. However, working on the books has meant less time for writing about them. Tonight I’ve uploaded a bunch of pictures, but haven’t had time to explain what they are. Will do that tomorrow, I hope.

What fascinates me is how the books change during the process.  I have a picture in my mind of what the finished product will look like, but it seldom is totally accurate.  Materials sometimes seem to have a mind of their own! Papers that I plan on using magically shrink or get cut in the wrong direction forcing me to use alternatives. Sometimes I just don’t like something on the sixth or seventh try.  One of the advantages of working on several pieces at once is that I have time to step away from one choice and come back to it later. Sometimes a paper I am considering for one book, will end up in a totally different place.

The Black Palm book is a good example.  My first thoughts on the endpapers were just wrong.  The second (the tigers) put William Blake into my head and I have been quoting “Tyger!, Tyger!” all week – mainly to myself.  I’m very pleased with the outcome.   I had no plan to use leather on any of these books.  It involves a lot of work to pare it down and I have been preoccupied with a lot of other stuff.  When I was trying to decide what to use as the spine for this book, nothing was working — until I noticed a piece of black leather.  It was just the right size and worked beautifully.  The result is that this is probably my favorite book in the batch and not at all as planned.

 

 

 

 

 

6 Comments

Filed under bookbinding

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

March 3, 2012 · 10:09 pm

Design vs. Doing

 

If you’ve read my pages on Designing a Book, you’ll know that I’ve started working on a new set of books this week.  The design decisions have almost all been made, so next week I’ll be moving on to the more mechanical aspects of making books – the sewing, the pasting, the cutting. I think the enjoyment I find in creating books, or my towers, comes from the duality of the process.  There’s a lot of thought and creativity that goes into the design phase, but that is followed by rote work.  To do it properly, one has to be careful and precise, but the sewing and pasting doesn’t take much thought.  Attention, yes, but not thought.  I can relax and daydream a bit.  Not too much or the textblock goes into the covers upside down!

It would be boring to just do the making part and it would be frustrating to just design with no product.  Combining design and execution makes a very fulfilling whole.  I’m sure there are hundreds of hobbies and skills that would yield equal satisfaction, but this works for me!

In case you missed them, these are the books I’m currently making.

Leave a Comment

Filed under bookbinding

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

Leave a Comment

Filed under bookbinding, Marbled Paper

Tagged as , , , , , ,

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.

Leave a Comment

Filed under bookbinding

Tagged as , , , ,