Posted in General craftiness, tagged bookbinding, etsy, harry potter, notebooks, journals, coptic binding, the hobbit, bilbo baggins, secret belgian binding, weasley, blythe doll 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 General craftiness, Pins and needles, tagged hexipuffs, journals, noro yarn, noro yozen, notebooks on April 24, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
I seem to be constantly chasing my tail at the moment, and today is no exception. The weather has been utterly gorgeous the past few days, and I completely forgot that it was Wednesday today!
First up a very quick sneak peek at some recent books…
And a quick hexipuff update… I had the huge pleasure of working with a skein of Noro yuzen last week, and it was a joy seeing each ‘puff emerge a different colour as I worked through the yarn.
I was sad to see it finish! I’m now knitting with a gorgeous silk and seaweed yarn, more on that next week.
Posted in General craftiness, tagged daleks, dr who, journals, notebooks, tardis, weeping angels on January 28, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
…Dr Who’s there! The Doctor returns to my Etsy shop courtesy of some beautiful fabrics from Spoonflower. I’ve made some coptic bound books in two sizes, and some A6 sized casebound books for those of a more traditional bent. These books will be available in my Etsy shop from Thursday evening, so keep your eyes peeled and please help spread the word!
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 Uncategorized, tagged bookbinding, enid blyton, enid blyton book of fairies, journals, notebooks, recycling, the adventurous four, the magic faraway tree, upcycling, vintage on January 11, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
Then treat yourself to one of these lovely notebooks, revamped using the original covers and fresh blank pages for you to fill with new memories. Click here to visit my Etsy shop.
Posted in General craftiness, tagged bookbinding, fairy tales, hexipuffs, journals, knitting, noro yarn, notebooks, philately, reuse, scrabble, stamps, stickers, vintage stamps, wednesday work in progress on December 5, 2012 | 1 Comment »
I’ve not posted a work-in-progress thread since October, mainly because I keep forgetting. I’ve been busy though, flitting from project to project. Some of the projects have been mine, but a couple of the most unusual ones have been my friend’s, which I’ve been helping him with on craft nights. In the past five weeks we’ve made a dressing gown out of a double duvet (yes, really!), and a waistcoat out of an old lumberjack style shirt. No photos of the finished objects, but he did wear the waistcoat to a party recently so hopefully some photos will surface eventually!
I’ve been adding to my stash of hexipuffs, and at the moment I’m busy using up the lovely mixed lot of Noro yarn I got on eBay a couple of months ago, and I’m nearly done working my way through all the scraps.
I’ve been mucking about with vintage stamps to create stickers, which will be added to my Etsy shop very soon.
I’ve also made a start on a bigger project: fairy tale books. I posted back in April that I’d been inspired to make notebooks based on classic fairy tales, and since then I’ve been turning the idea over in my head every so often. The original sketches were a good starting point, but I’ve refined the plan somewhat and have finished the first version of Little Red Riding Hood. Here’s a sneak peek, but I will be putting up a full blog post on this very soon.
In other notebook-related news I’ve been a bit erratic with my designs. Not inspired by any one theme, but trying to clear some space in the studio (which is an ongoing battle) by using things up as I unearth them. This scattergun approach has led to a rather mixed lot, ranging from Dr Who themed books to this wonderful Scrabble book amongst other things.
Unsurprisingly this sold very quickly at the recent Kensal Flea! I’ve got more Scrabble tiles stashed away somewhere so there may be another version of this emerging from the studio some time soon.
That’s it for this Wednesday. I’ll be hard at work in the studio for the rest of this week, and hopefully I’ll have some lovely new books to show off at the Salusbury School Christmas Fair this Saturday.
Posted in Project 365, tagged cherry print, coptic binding, notebooks, project 365 on July 8, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Posted in General craftiness, tagged enid blyton, notebooks, recycling, the enchanted wood, the magic faraway tree, the naughtiest girl in the school, upcycling on April 29, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
These have proved popular in the past, and so I’m pleased to announce that I’ve been able to add another six of these kitsch notebooks to my Etsy shop. Titles include The Magic Faraway Tree, The Enchanted Wood, and the Naughtiest Girl in the School. Click here to view what’s available.
Posted in General craftiness, tagged beatrix potter, beekeeper's quilt, bookbinding, bunting, enid blyton, hexipuffs, miniature bunting, notebooks, patchwork, peter rabbit, quilting, the leopard anchor on April 25, 2012 | 2 Comments »
I’m a little tired this morning so I’m stealing borrowing today’s title from Kirst over at The Leopard Anchor, she regularly posts a Wednesday WIP and it’s a great idea.
I’ve got quite a lot on the go at the moment, inspiration is a lot like London buses – you wait ages for an idea and then three turn up at once. The past few days have therefore been a flurry of activity and there really haven’t been enough hours in the day to get everything done.
I’ve been playing with old book pages and felt to make bunting…
… I’ll post more details on the bunting later this week.
I’ve got more vintage books to turn into notebooks…
…and I’m hoping to get some of these finished today.
I’ve taken up an interest in international mining…
…not really, but were you worried for a moment? I’m working on a custom order for someone and she’s provided her own artwork for the cover, so she needed something to protect the artwork in the post. What do you do when you haven’t got any stiff card? Use a random magazine of course!
I’ve been playing with quilting again…
…and hopefully this will be turned into something very soon…
And finally I’m still happily working on the Beekeeper’s Quilt…
…and it’s going well. I’m knitting in front of the telly most evenings and it’s wonderful watching my stash of hexipuffs growing. I’ve now got 73 so I’m well on my way to my new quilt!
Posted in General craftiness, tagged beatrix potter, benjamin bunny, children's literature, coptic binding, flopsy bunnies, jemima puddleduck, jeremy fisher, mr tod, mrs tiggy-winkle, mrs tittlemouse, notebooks, peter rabbit, recycling, squirrel nutkin, tailor of gloucester, tale of two bad mice, upcycling, vintage on April 18, 2012 | 1 Comment »
I’ve had a bit of a yen for Beatrix Potter recently, and my latest batch of notebooks is a bit of a dead giveaway. I bought a batch of vintage Beatrix Potter books and then wondered what to do with them…
They look pretty much like you’d expect these books to look, but I was delighted to remove the dust covers and find that the actual books were in fact green.
Far too pretty to cover up! The illustrations are, obviously, a major part of the books too so I wanted to include those in the notebooks. Thus began a fair amount of faffing to get the original pages out intact (a bit tricky as they’re glued as well as sewn in) but it was worth the effort. Each notebook includes 16 pages (32 sides) from the book out of which it was made.
I kept the binding simple and stuck with coptic binding, this also allowed me to display the original endpapers
There are twelve of these notebooks and they’d make a great gift for any lover of classic children’s literature. Click here to visit my Etsy shop.
Twelve
