Madelaine

I would like to introduce you to Madeleine.

She is the front cover for an A5 journal. She is needle felted and bound to 2.5mm bookboard. Her neck is not attached to the board, so that she can have her necklace changed if a different look is wanted and earrings can be attached if desired. The buyer can decide how many sheets of paper they would like in the journal and also whether they would like 120gsm or 160gsm.


I'll be sorry to part with her when the time comes, but I'm sure she will ask one of her friends to come and help me with my bookbinding.

Talk soon

Love & hugs
Angela xxx

McLean Book Arts Launch

Today is the big day for McLean Book Arts (MBA). Champagne is chilling in the fridge and a dinner reservation has been made. We are going to combine 2 celebrations, the launch and our 13th wedding anniversary (13 is a good number and it will be our best year yet).

Today the website goes live along with the Etsy shop. I'm putting a few notebooks on today and then there will be 2 or 3 notebooks added per week and after that, as I make them. Nettie has kindly offered to display some brochures at H.W. McLean engravers in Paisley (big hugs) and my hairdresser Lia at Moda in Leith has kindly offered to take some of my flyers (also big hugs). Also a big thank you to friends who have offered to take some flyers/brochures and thank you so much for the beautiful flowers sweetie.

Talk soon

Love & hugs
Angela
xxx

P.S. Big thank you to Nettie & Hamish (MiL/FiL) for the beautiful flowers, very much appreciated. xxx

Nearly ready to go

Well, exciting times, I have a launch date and I'm nearly ready. Got flyers, posters and postcards done, my business cards are great. Tomorrow I have an appointment to see the bank about a business account. The bank appointment is making everything very real, not too scary though, I'm really excited. I have an appointment with my Business Mentor next week to finalise my brochure and go over the details of starting up, then I'm ready to send out the marketing materials. The items on my To Do list are gradually being ticked off.

I had lunch with my friend Adele today and told her all about my plans, I hadn't seen her for a while, so she didn't know about it. We used to work together. She was telling me all about her daughter, who is now two. She sounds like a real cutie. It was lovely to see her.

I've been doing some work this evening and now I've finished my blog.

Talk soon

Love & hugs
Angela xxx

P.S. Just bank from the bank, a lovely lady at HSBC has given me a business account.

Tuesday

I've not been awfully well, so I've avoided being creative and stuck with the manual task of sewing book blocks. It's something that a lot of binders hate, but I really like it. I find it to be quite therapeutic and it gives me something to do while watching TV or when I'm feeling restless. They need to be done at some point in the process, so I've now got a stock of them to keep me going. I've found paper that I really like, so I'm going to be doing all my future book blocks with it and I'll also use it for flyers and brochures. It will be good to use for brochures as it will let the person reading it actually see and feel the quality of the paper. I think that I might be starting to feel a wee bit better, because my ideas machine is ticking over again. It's quite hard to switch off, once it gets into gear. It's just a good job I can make notebooks. I love my laptop and I love my smart phone, but sometimes writing down an idea on paper seems to bring it to life a bit more that a gadget would.

I'll be having a meeting with my Mentor in a week's time, really looking forward to it and she's so supportive. I'll get going with a couple of ideas I had earlier and get a couple of draft items a bit more firmed up and printed off to take with me. I thought I'd take her to one of my favourite places in Leith, something different from Costa. I don't like their coffee coolers, but prefer a frappuccino from Starbucks, though their skinny cappuccino is fine. Talking of coffee, the best in Leith has to be from The Shore, it's fantastic.

It's 02:27 in Edinburgh and I should be in Z-land, but I couldn't sleep. I forgot to take my painkillers at the right time. I think I'll head to bed now though, I feel a yawn coming on.

Talk soon

Love & hugs
Angela xxx

Last couple of days

I tried to do one of my secret bindings yesterday, but I know when to give up. I wasn't feeling too well (not a good time for me to try to be creative) and I was trying to make an A6 version (probably too small). It wasn't a complete waste of time though. It kept me occupied while watching Inspector Montalbano on DVD and I know now, not to try this design in such a small format. The next one will be larger.

On Saturday, met the girls from the Etsy Edinburgh Crafters Team for an outing at Hobbycraft. It was a lovely day. I picked Vickie and Marta up from outside the museum on Chamber Street and we headed off to The Fort. We thought we might meet a couple of members at Hobbycraft, unfortunately not. We must have been in there for an hour. I bought an A5 storage box, some ribbon for book markers and some greyboard (I really wish they'd stock 3mm though, I going to start going to Greyfriar's Art Shop for it, I think). Afterwards we went to Starbuck's for coffee. The girls bought me a coffee frappuccino, which was so nice of them (thank you xx). The next Etsy Edinburgh Crafters meeting is on the 22nd July. It's a great community. We don't do the try to sell to each other things, we try to help each other with ideas and information for the shops, etc.

Are you are a crafter in Edinburgh and have an Etsy shop or thinking about opening an Etsy shop?

Talk soon

Love & hugs
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

New Book Finished

I got the first book of the new venture finished today. It's called "Honey Bee". It has been completed with Coptic stitch binding and is ready for it's close up. I have decided to wait until I get a few more books done before I take some photos though and wait until I get good natural light coming in.

I started on the second book "Bubbles" a couple of days ago. The bubbles are finished, paper is folded, just need to get the cover done now. I've learned a great deal doing the first book, it has been an interesting experience.

I'm going to start adding photos to the posts soon, some to older posts too, to brighten them up and make them a bit more interesting. I'm really quite tired, so it won't be today, but I'll schedule something in for next week. I was supposed to be doing some voluntary work today, but the lady that I befriend cancelled, so I'm glad I can get a rest. I met my friend last night, had a wonderful time catching up.

talk soon

love & hugs
Angela
xxx

P.S.

Unfortunately, Bubbles isn't working out as planned. Oh well, onto the next idea.