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

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

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

My 2014 Diary

I'm just about to start printing my new Filofax diary (yes, I have an A5 snake print and a blue personal size). The A5 Filofax, I use for my business organisation (I hate tearing pages out of a bound notebook and I rearrange my section quite a bit) and I'm needing to get at least January and February inserted into it. I create my own diaries from scratch. I make a double spread version with a week on the left hand side and an organisation page with To Do's, calls, meeting, etc, on the right. Similar printouts can be found easily online, but I prefer to create my own org page, I only want the stuff I would use and find it messy to score through/tippex headings for the anal me (only with paper, I think) to cope with. I'm not going to make diaries this year for sale, unless they are requested, just so I can work on building up my stock.

Off to use up some printer ink.

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

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

The Launch

The Launch day is nearly here, the 6th September, but everything is practically ready. The brochures are in the midst of being printed, letters of introduction, postcards, flyers and posters are done. I'll be uploading the new website and new products on my Etsy shop on the day. It is our wedding anniversary the next day, so hubby and I will be having a double celebration that weekend.

Things will change as I get going, but that happens, especially when new ideas are escaping from my sub-conscious every night. It can be annoying when I've forgotten what i dreamt about the night before, but I have a pen and paper by the bed, so I catch a few of them. A lot of the ideas are just not viable, but some of them are and they are going to be incorporated into the mix at some point.
I'm working on a new range of notebooks at the moment, I thought I'd get those going quite quickly as they are a less expensive option. The current range costs from £20 - £50, but the new ones will be from £16.00 to £19.00. They will be the same quality and the same materials, but will just have fewer pages.

In the autumn, I going to be working on a product for toddlers, not saying what it is yet, but you'll be the first to know when it launches. It will be very interesting to see how it evolves. It was an idea that my Mentor came up with after seeing my work for the first time. It will be a lot of fun letting my inner child out for a while.

The blogs posts have been devoid of photos, but that will change on Friday, promise.

Talk soon

Love & hugs
Angela
xxx

Commissioning an Avatar

I've commissioned a larger version of my bee avatar from Marilyn from Accentuate on Etsy. She is a fantastic graphic designer from Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA. I've completely fallen for her work. If I didn't go with the bee banner, there are many more of her graphics that I have on my favourites. I'm also getting a larger version of my banner for Facebook and my blog. When you purchase one of her packages, you are buying a one of a kind, aka OOAK, that only you can use. It took me ages to figure out what OOAK meant, d'oh. I'm thinking of printing the avatar on a t-shirt, it would look good on black.

I've just found out that one of my Etsy friends, Marta, who also does graphics, is selling banner packages on Etsy. Marta's shop can be found at LittleMars. Her work is brilliant and it's worth clicking the link and having a look. I really love her mini journals and typographic prints, I going to buy a mini journal soon, need to decide the on the quote. Actually, I've decided, I would like a "dreams" one please Marta :)

I went to IKEA today, to get a 3 drawer pedestal to put under my work desk. It was only £25, bargain. I need the storage and hubby is having a drawer for his study things. I'm going to spend Monday re-arranging and labelling boxes, I love boxes.

Talk soon

Love & hugs
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

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
 

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

Business Cards

Got my new business cards yesterday. I love them, they are gorgeous. Next, I'm going to think about flyers. etc.

I spoke with my Mentor, she's just brilliant, so supportive. I'm really lucky to have her. Looking forward to our next meeting, hopefully I'll have a lot more work to show her. She was delighted with her ledger, just as well, it had her initials on it.

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

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

Trip to Ikea

We had a trip to Ikea today to get a desk and chair for my studio/spare room. Got a great desk, the right size, along with a matching bookcase for £50, yay. The chair is great too, it's a lovely green one on wheels. We put the desk and chair together when we got home and we'll get around to the bookcase another day. I can now get all my tools and supplies sorted out in a permanent home.

I bought an online course yesterday, it will help me with my technique with the decorative parts of my bookbinding. It will be really quite unusual and it will add another string to my golden bow.

Off to sort some paper out.

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