Where has the week gone? It’s been a productive one here, and I’ve taken lots of photographs, but haven’t had time to update my blog. Terrible!
Monday was a bit of a wash out weather-wise and I ended up coming home from work early and spending the rest of the day in my studio. There’s a lot of colour in my garden at the moment, and it made me want to do something colourful in my studio…
Luckily I had this fabulously cheerful paper, and an equally vibrant (and beautifully soft) skin of yellow leather. I used the suede side for the spine of this book as the colour is deeper than the leather side.
I was in the mood for longstitch binding after that so I made another book in the same style, this time using a Wizard of Oz themed paper (click the image to view a larger image and see the detail) and a gorgeous olive green leather.
On Tuesday I had the entire day in my studio and boy did I enjoy it! I started off by making another batch of Marvellous Miniatures (I sewed the page blocks on Monday, so I just had to make the covers and attach the pages into them), making a further dent in my seemingly neverending stash of leftovers:
After that I had a bit of time left so I experimented with the yellow suede/leather, lining it with a page from a vintage road atlas. The leather is so sumptuously soft that I’ve wanted to make wraparound journals with it for a while, but it’s so thin that it’s not really suitable for use in that way. Backing it with a paper gives it a bit more substance (and also lends interest to the interior).
It was a successful experiment, and I’ve since made a couple of smaller versions using different colours of leather and pages from a vintage copy of Romeo & Juliet. No photos as yet, but give me time!
The longstitch books will all be added to my Etsy shop this weekend, but this batch of Marvellous Miniatures is being kept back for the craft fairs I’ll be taking part in over the next month.
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