Posted in General craftiness, tagged bilbo baggins, blythe doll, bookbinding, coptic binding, etsy, harry potter, journals, notebooks, secret belgian binding, the hobbit, weasley on May 22, 2013 | 1 Comment »
Another busy week here at The Gift Shed, so here’s a quick peek at some of the new books I recently added to my Etsy shop…
I’ve also added a couple of trinket boxes (a special Harry Potter one, and a Hobbit themed one too)…
I need to set aside some time in the next week to catch up with blogging properly as I’ve got to write up a couple of commissions too. Busy busy busy!
Posted in Commissions, tagged archery, bookbinding, commission, coptic binding, king's lynn field archers, leather, notebook on March 5, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
The start of this year has kept me quite busy with commissions (always a good thing!), and here’s the latest one. A friend, who is an archer, asked me if I could make him a score book. His specifications were that it should be waterproof, approximately A5 in size, contain score charts on each page, and that the club logo should be prominent on the front – leaving him at my mercy for the actual cover design…
There are, of course, cheaper materials to waterproof a book with, but I couldn’t resist this burgundy leather. It’s hardwearing, waterproof, and gorgeous to boot. The club logo has been covered with a clear plastic and set into the front cover, and the book contains 60 score sheets, which will hopefully last Andy some time!
Posted in Commissions, tagged bespoke, bookbinding, commission, coptic binding, creating misericordia, wedding book on March 1, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
I’m quite late in blogging about this commission, which dates back to the middle of January, but better late than never! Katy of Creating Misericordia got in touch because she was in search of a wedding planning book and had taken a shine to the cover of this small notebook in my shop.
Now, a lot of the time I only have one or two sheets of any given cover paper – which I think is a good thing as it means most of my books are one-of-a-kind, but occasionally a customer will ask me to replicate something and then it becomes frustrating because usually by the time I need another sheet of something they’re no longer available to buy. Happily in this instance I was able to get another two sheets of that paper! Phew!
The book is enormous: it’s just shy of A4, contains 48 pages (96 sides) of 220gsm cartridge paper, has grey Murano endpapers, and weighs in at a whopping 760g! It looks great, which is a relief because sometimes scaling books up in size doesn’t work aesthetically, there’s always a chance they’ll look a little too bulky, or comically big – but the bold design on this paper works brilliantly in a larger size.
Many thanks to Katy for the commission, and I hope her friends liked their book!
Posted in Commissions, tagged bespoke, bookbinding, commission, coptic binding, handmade, lundy island, map, ordnance survey map, recycling, upcycling, wedding, wedding guestbook on February 21, 2013 | 3 Comments »
A lovely little commission for a gorgeous wee lass. The covers are made using an old ordnance survey map of the Barnstaple area – with Lundy Island given pride of place, as that’s where the couple got engaged.
It was a really nice book to work on, but one thing I did discover was that my desk is not really big enough for some things…
…yeah, I did struggle a bit there, but got there in the end and the finished result was well worth the swearing!
The names of the bride and groom, together with the wedding date, were added to the front of the book by hand (imitating the fonts which were used on the invitations). The book measures approximately 21cm x 15cm, and contains 36 pages (72 sides) of 220gsm cartridge paper; the coptic binding has been done using 100% linen thread.
I still have quite a lot of the map left over, so there may yet be a second installment to this post!
Posted in General craftiness, tagged bookbinding, books, case binding, coptic binding, leather, print gocco on January 30, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
A little bit of structure from me, which makes a nice change, this post is a direct follow up to last week’s work in progress. When last we left this project I had these books finished:
But wasn’t entirely sure what to do with them. I had the vague idea of filling a box with them, but didn’t have enough of them to fill said box.
This is the box in question:
It’s a sturdy but plain box with a sliding lid, and it’s actually a bit of a sore point in this household. Once upon a time we had a beautiful chess set: all the metal pieces were themed for Lord of the Rings, and it was a one-of-a-kind set that my father had owned for most of his life. Now, I loved my dad, but he did have two major weaknesses – the pub, and the betting shop… you can see where this is going, right? Yeah, at some unknown point my dad must have sold the set, probably for a fraction of its actual worth, because after he died we turned the house upside down and found only the box and no sign of the actual chess pieces.
It’s said that you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but I’ll be honest and admit that there was a fair amount of cursing when I realised the chess set was gone. I’m still very cross about it but there’s absolutely nothing I can do to get them back, so I decided to try and use the box for something else and try and create a new memory with it.
Anyway, that’s the history of the box and how it ended up in my studio, and after much thinking and a a hell of a lot of work, here’s the finished project.
A grand total of 22 books: half of which are casebound…
…and the other half are simple longstitch bindings
That’s a total of 22 different leathers used in this project, including gloving leather, skiver (thin layer of sheepskin), goat leather, calf skin, and goodness knows what else! One of the aims of the project was to use up as many of the scraps in my studio as possible, so all the leather has been saved from previous projects (or are samples that I’ve hoarded for years – some of those have been lurking around my house for over a decade!) and I’m hugely pleased to have finally used them for something interesting. The Gocco prints were, as I mentioned last week, leftovers, so the only new thing is the paper I used for the pages as I did need to have some uniformity in there.
I’ll be adding this set to my Etsy shop in the next week, but I fear the postage cost might make this one a bit unfeasible for overseas customers as the box and contents weigh in at a whopping 1.7kg!
Posted in General craftiness, tagged bookbinding, coptic binding, journals, letters, mail, notebooks, post, recycling, stamps, upcycling, vintage on January 21, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
Or you could have, if you treat yourself to one of my new notebooks. Some time ago a friend sent me some vintage envelopes, dated from the 1940s, which I put safely away in my desk and then forgot.
I rediscovered them last week and thought it was about time I did something with them. I thought they were beautiful as they were, so I turned them into simple coptic-bound notebooks so as to preserve as much of the original envelopes as possible.
If you’d like to purchase one of these lovely little books then click here to visit my Etsy shop.
Posted in General craftiness, tagged coptic binding, journal, medical, medicine, notebook, prescription, recycling, upcycling on January 16, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
Posted in Project 365, tagged coptic binding, notebook, project 365, scrabble on November 23, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
23rd November 2012 – “Words”
Posted in Project 365, tagged coptic binding, project 365 on October 21, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Posted in Commissions, tagged board games, carcassonne, commission, coptic binding, custom order, gaming, leather, wedding on August 21, 2012 | 1 Comment »
A few months ago I was tracked down by a very determined man. He’d received one of my notebooks from his fiancée, but as I’d not stamped my details in back he had to find me the hard way. Top marks though, he did manage it, and once he’d found me he had a commission for me!
He wanted a special book made which he could fill with bits and bobs and then give to his bride-to-be as a wedding gift. They have a shared love of games, so he decided he wanted some tiles from Carcassonne used on the cover. It took two attempts to send the tiles to me (thanks to some unscrupulous so-and-so at Royal Mail who opened the first envelope…), but they did eventually arrive and the book was made.
Emily and Pete tied the knot this weekend just gone, so congratulations to them!
