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.

My Folksy shop is now up and running

I made the decision a while ago to change my shop host from Etsy to Folksy. Now it's done and here is the link:

https://beta.folksy.com/shops/McLeanBookArts

I've listed some of the notebooks I've already made and I'm planning to do some notebooks with wet felted covers. 

I also have some photos on deviantART here:

http://mcleanbookarts.deviantart.com/

On my To Do list are some wet/needle felted Moleskine covers. I love Moleskine notebooks, so I think I'll make covers for mine and for sale.

At the moment, I'm making an A6 monogrammed Coptic bound notebook for a client and after that I'm making a diary. I'm getting fed up using my phone diary. I'm not sure of the size or design yet, but I have the diary pages ready to print. I make the diary blocks myself on Publisher, that way I can get the layout exactly how I want it. I'll probably start it from 1st May to end Dec 2015.

I'll might be putting something on Folksy next week, I wonder what it will be....

Talk soon

Love & hugs

Angela xxx

Latest Commission Completed

Just completed my latest commission. It is a coptic bound A7 notebook with a KM monogram. The background is blue with black stitching and the monogram in purple and lilac is needle felted on the front. There are 9 signatures of 120gsm white paper, each with a different colour of paper folded around each section to give the spine a rainbow look.

I really love doing these notebooks. There is something satisfying about sewing the final few stitches and having a completed book in my hand.  The notebook is going to be posted off tomorrow, so that there will be plenty of time for it to be given as a gift at Christmas.

Talk soon
Love & Hugs
Angela xxx

Laptop

I need a cover for my Lenovo laptop. I've had a look in the place where I bought it. Nearly bought a pink cover with handles, but it didn't really grab me, it was a case of 'that's the best of what they have'. I would end up looking for another one. I'm thinking about needle felting one. I'd need thicker pre-felted merino wool as the base though, don't have any in my stock. What design to put on it? My instant thought would be to go for a tree design. Don't know if I want that. The new designs I have in mind for the notebooks would be really good, haven't seen anything like it so far online.

Now I've had my hair cut again, I need a new photo. I went along to Lia at Moda in Bernard Street in Leith with a photo on my phone of what I called a 'Sharon Stone haircut'. Lia did a wonderful job, I love it. The photo that I'm using for my blog etc. isn't really very good. It is a passport size photo that looks a bit pixelated when enlarged. Not sure how I'm going to go about this as Ricardo doesn't like taking photos. I'll think of something though.

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 Notebooks

Now that I'm back from my lovely holiday in Marseille, I'm getting back into work mode now that I've recovered from delayed flights from Paris. I've been busy this week. Sorting out my schedule for the next few weeks for my own work and doing voluntary work (met my new match). A flat tyre that needed replaced and a leak from the flat upstairs again, not a bad one this time though. I've got some courses to do. A Pitman's social media course which includes an exam, a couple of webinars to catch up on about marketing on Twitter and a couple of networking meetups. There are also the Business Gateway courses that I need to go to, but not yet. I want to go out and have a few coffees too.

I finished the last (for a while anyway) of my coptic bound A6 dark tree notebooks and have put them on Etsy.  I use 120gsm white paper in all my books now (an exception will be the cigar book that I need to start) as I find it's good to work with and doesn't bleed with ink. I hate that some of the well known notebooks on the market have reduced the quality of their paper, one of the reasons that I started making my own books.

I'm starting a new series of A7 size notebooks (even though I have a "to do" list of books to make). The first is a commission with a monogram. It's will be in blue with black lettering. The spine is being done in shades of blue with a black cross stitched spine. I'll upload a photo when it's finished. I have an idea for displaying the smaller books. I can probably just do it, but I think I might go along to my favourite bindery to get a hands on box-making course instead of the hand tooling course that I was going to book on to.

I've got the blank A6 cards that I'd ordered to make the business xmas cards to send to clients. I had a trial print, but decided that they really need an insert for the text, so I've ordered some. I need to get on and do the needle felting for the front of the card, the inside and the back texts are ready to go.

Talk soon
Love & hugs
Angela xxx

Latest notebook

This is my latest notebook. It's another abstract spiral notebook with a red felt cover with blue needle felted design and stitching. It is for sale on my Etsy shop for £16.00 or for a discounted price of £10, (offer only available on this blog) by contacting me at mcleanbookarts@virginmedia.com and I will arrange discount on Etsy for you.

 

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/McLeanBookArts

I have a new commission. It will be an A7 notebook, the client has still to choose the colours and number of signatures. The design will be the clients initials needle felted on the front.

Talk soon
Love & hugs
Angela xxx

Notebooks

The last few days have been quite productive. I finished an A6 coptic bound notebook. It has a blue needle felted cover with a tree on the front. The spine is sewn in brown embroidery thread to match the stitching around the cover. It also has a coloured spine, the signatures have been wrapped in different shades of blue, with a dark blue in the middle, moving on to lighter shade next to the cover boards. The spine wrap is cut with a decorative trim on the inside. This is the first one with the coloured spine I've done, I can definitely see me using it again.

The commission I was doing was finished. It's a traditional binding. I'll write a description  and a photo on the blog once it has gone to it's new home.

Talk soon
Love & hugs
Angela xxx

New Improved Website Launched

The new and much improved website created for me by Marco Argentina is now up and running. The problems with my website for the past few days has now been fixed (thank you Mr Hosting Company). While it was down, I thought it would be a great time to upload the new version, so that when the site appeared again, it would be all sparkling new.

I've been making some books and started the Spirals' abstract series. It's Coptic bound and in the lower prices range which starts at £14.00 for the A7 size (this one is an A6).

I have a commission ongoing. I've done the book block and I'll start cutting the boards and covering paper this week. I'm looking forward to seeing it completed, should look great.

Go a few things on this week, including 2 courses (one is online which is great), a Sci-fi book group and I'll go and see the Mary, Queen of Scots exhibition at the museum either this week or next, I'll see how things pan out.

Heading off to Marseille soon with Ricardo. Really can't wait. Lovely weather, beautiful sights and wonderful food and wine and some Ricard of course. Planning to buy some Savon de Marseille, lavender oil and some herbes des Provence.

Talk soon
Love & hugs
Angela xxx

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

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

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.

Courses

I've just booked another bookbinding course with a bindery in Partick called Downie Allison Downie (aka DAD) for July. I'm really looking forward to it. A Saturday at the bindery is really relaxed and there is no pressure. I left with 4 lovely books and I was delighted. These guys are highly recommended. I've planned to do at least 4 of the courses this year. I love the machines they have, I could play there all day.

I also need to get a more advanced needle felting course. I've found one on Etsy that looks great. Making the little mice will let me practice the techniques I need to make my own creations. I'll buy it next month.


This is a case bound book, again, done at the course. It has been personalised with my initials. Talk soon

Love & hugs
Angela
xxx