Sunny Days & New Projects

At last, Spring is here. What a difference it makes to see the sun out (well, sometimes) and everyone looks in a better mood. I've heard that this summer is going to be the hottest since records began. That could be good and bad, loads of fantastic days out and vitamin D, but think I'm thinking droughts in England (after all the terrible floods), though we shouldn't be too bad in here in Scotland.

I thought for a change, rather than showing you a finished notebook, I would show you one that I'm in the middle of doing. It has a blue background with needle felted pale trees. The size is going to be somewhere in the middle of an A5 and an A6, I've cut the paper and bound in into signatures. I've been doing a lot of Coptic stitch recently, so I'm thinking that would make this casebound instead. The middle of the main tree trunk will be the spine, it's a touchy feely type of notebook. You will feel each of the twists in the trunk as you handle it .

I'll take more photos as I go along and post them on my blog.

Talk soon

Love & hugs
Angela xx

PS: Has anyone read the book 'The Four Agreements' by Don Miguel Ruiz, it's one book that has really made me seriously look at my perceptions and have a rethink.

McLean Book Arts Website

If you like unusual hand crafted notebooks, go and have a look at the website at

McLean Book Arts

talk soon

Love & hugs

Angela

xxx

Monogram Notebook

I've just finished my first A6 notebook. It's the commissioned monogram notebook I mentioned. It feels a really nice size to put in a pocket. It has 9 signatures with different shades of blue crimped paper. It was really nice to do. I'll be doing a lots more A7 size notebooks in future.

The next set of books I'm going to do will be wrap around casebound books in A5 size. They will have a seasonal design and there will only be 4 books in total. The winter notebook design will also be used as the design for my business xmas card.

I have a new series of book in mind to make after the seasonal ones. They will have celt designs and be in various sizes and colours, these will be fun. I'll post photos when they are done.

Talk soon

Love & hugs

Angela xxx

New Notebook

I've got a new book in the works, a bit different from all the needle-felted notebooks I've been making. It's A6 size with hand marbled paper binding, with Costa Rican cigar paper signatures. It's going to be a one off ever. The paper hasn't been available for at least 10 years and I'm using all I have in the notebook. It will be available soon in my Etsy shop. I'm going to be doing a few more traditionally bound notebooks in the near future, I have a few sheets of hand marbled paper that I bought from a maker in the States.

I'll be putting a couple more needle-felted notebooks in the shop next week. I took the photos today, so just need to write the blurb. 

Talk soon 
Angela 
xxx

New Cover

I've been quite productive today. Managed to finish one of my secret bindings in A6 called "Queen of Hearts", it took a while, but I got there. Pity I can't describe it or post a photo, that has to wait for the launch. Also been working on " The Tree". Got the cover done, just need to attach it to a book block. I'll probably get that done tomorrow.

The printer is playing up. I can't seem to get the paper I want to use to go through. Total pain, I was trying for ages, even glued the paper to a sheet of printer paper, alas no luck. I wanted to have an idea about the brochure I had, ready for Tuesday. That's when I'm meeting up with my Mentor. I may have to think up something to get around the problem.

The thing I've discovered about working for myself, is that I can work when I want to. I've been working for 4 hours this evening while watching Indiana Jones and sipping wine. It's 21:30 now and I'm thinking about stopping when I've done this blog post. Well, that's it, I'm off.

Talk soon

Love & hugs
Angela
xxx

New journal on Etsy

A new journal was listed in my Etsy shop this evening. It is a hand bound A4 journal with 130gsm cream paper. It is covered with black bonded leather on the spine and beautiful handmade Japanese paper with a floral design on a red background (which a friend brought back for me from Japan). It would have been listed at a price of £37.00, but has been discounted to £20.00. The reason for the discounted price is a glue problem on the last pages of the book (see photo on my Etsy page). 

On to the next book....

Talk soon 
Angela xxx

Bookbinding Course

On Saturday morning, I got the train to Partick to attend another bookbinding course at Downie Allison Downie. It was a great day, made 2 heavy A4 ledger type books. It was an experience working with the larger notebooks, A5 is the biggest I've dealt with. The day went so fast, that we were all pretty surprised when someone told us it was 4:30. we thought it was only about 2:30. John is a pretty patient guy, which is probably just as well. He gets bombarded with questions at every class.

I've now got a drill stand to do Japanese Stab Bindings, yay. John was kind enough to let me have a couple of drill bits (I didn't have any the right size). The next thing I have to buy is a pedestal for under my desk for storage and then a guillotine, I think. This all may change on pay day in a few weeks.

On Saturday, I'm looking forward to having a shopping day at Hobbycraft with the Etsy Crafters Team. I'm looking for some 3mm greyboard, they usually only have 2.5mm. There is an empty space on the rack for 3mm, so I'm going to ask them about it this time. After that we are going for a nice relaxing coffee to talk about what we bought and what we are going to do with it. They are a lovely bunch of people. The next outing will be to the Scrapstore in Musselburgh, though the opening hours may prohibit some people from going.

Today I'm meeting my amazing Mentor for a coffee. I'll take along the stuff I've made since our last meeting and she'll get a little surprise too.

Talk soon

Love & hugs
Angela xxx

Etsy Shop Grand Opening

I opened my Etsy shop today, ok there is only one thing in it, but it's a start. The casebound and coptic bookbinding will be available to buy as it it finished, the others will be waiting for the big launch in a few months time. So, here is a link to my shop:

McLean Book Arts

The journal listed is "Victoria", she is a hand bound A5 journal with 72 pages (144 sides) of 130gsm cream paper. She is covered with green buckram on the spine and 100gsm archival quality cream Oxford paper with a Western 20th century European reproduction design. She has green and red headbands and a green ribbon place marker.

I should have some more journals ready to be listed by Monday, so my shop will look a wee bit busier.

Talk soon

Love & hugs
Angela
xxx

Notebook Covers

Last night I finished doing two notebook covers. It's something relaxing I can do while watching television, well, an Inspector Montalbano DVD actually. One of the covers is for an A5 coptic binding, the other is for an A6 case binding. The paper has been cut and folded. The smaller book has the bookblock ready to go. I'll get onto that today.

On Monday, I'm doing a pamphlet workshop at the Etsy meeting. I'll show the guys how to make a  basic pamphlet and then explain to them the various things that can be done while making them (I'm not taking glue with me, so I'll just be explaining). Should be fun. Then they can make their own booklets for advertising their crafts, etc.

Anyway, got a couple of books to bind.

Talk soon

love & hugs
Angela
xxx

Pieces of Leather

I've decided that I've had enough of using my fingers as pin cushions while needlefelting, so I've purchased some leather offcuts on eBay and I'm going to make myself some fingerstalls. While needlefelting, you can't always keep the project on the felting brush or foam (stopped using foam, I hate getting bits of it felted into my project). Sometimes the needle goes straight through and pierces flesh, then you have to dump the wool as it's stained with blood. My bag of offcuts was a bargain, about £7 for 600g. I've noticed that there aren't many people selling fingerstalls for needlefelters, so I might make some for sale. Some pieces are actually big enough to make A6 size notebook covers, if I wanted to get into that, I'll see (stop it, mustn't go off on tangents, must focus on business plan, focus.....).

Last night I cut enough materials for 2 more books and folded the paper, now just to decide on the features. These will be more coptic bound notebooks, after those, I'll do some case bound. The notebooks have been A5 size, maybe once I've done a few A5 case bound notebooks, I'll do some A6 sizes for variety.

I've got photos to take for my shop on Etsy, so once they are up, I'll put them on here too.

talk soon

love & hugs
Angela
xxx