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Entries in books (3)

Monday
01Feb2010

More Handmade Books

Here are the books I've been making recently.  I've been experimenting with different sizes and designs so that I can offer a handmade book for my next giveaway. 

After trying it for the first time yesterday, I really like the idea of offering a set of matchbook notebooks for free on my blog.  Maybe a set of two or three as they're so quick and easy to make and they are fun to embellish.  I made this one by using this tutorial:

    

Here are the other two books I made but for one reason or another, they didn't come out how I wanted them, so no good for the giveaway.

This one has been bound by hand using waxed cotton thread  It was then embellished with punched flower shapes and illustrated with black ink.

This one has also been bound by hand using waxed cotton thread.  I then punched an entwined hearts shape through the front cover and then drew around the shape with a white gel pen.  I think the pen marks look like I used white-out!

So those are my latest bookbinding adventures with more to come soon since I really want to make one or more that are good enough to give away on this blog.

Sunday
30Aug2009

Bookbinding Adventures

I made another book this week.  I'm still not entirely happy with the final results but I'm learning so much from practising that it's still gratifying.  I'm reading about lots of methods from tutorials on the net and sometimes adapting them to my own preferences.  One thing I really do love about experimenting is the use of recycled/upcycled materials such as old envelopes, cardboard inserts from tshirts/clothes and recycled printer paper.  I also really enjoy the sewing of them too.

I just wanted to show my attempts so far for my own benefit and for anyone else who may be interested.  This is the book I made today using the materials I stated above:

 

Here are the others I've made over the last 6 months or so:

   

     

So there's the mish-mash of different looks and styles but I know I'll get better if I just keep trying. Wish me luck!

Saturday
21Feb2009

Handmade Books and Recycled Plastic Bag Art

Taking part in Thing A Day has really allowed me to lose some inhibitions and explore creating art using other media than just watercolours.  I'm now combining watercolours with ink, cardboard, collage, plastic bags, envelopes and creating handmade books.  It's so exciting to think up ideas on how to use these recycled materials.  Here are the ones that I most enjoyed creating:

 

I created the above mini book by using some left over blue card for the cover and a brown envelope which I cut up to make the pages.  The plant on the front of the books is some cut pieces from the same brown envelope.

I had a little helper to create the above book!  My five year old son helped me to do all the glueing, including wrapping the cardboard cover in left over wrapping paper and pasting the typewritten paper together to make the pages.

The above illustration was fun because I used a cut piece of blue plastic bag for the dancer's skirt.  I glued the skirt down first and then created the illustration around it.

To see more pictures of the handmade book from different angles see my flickr here.