Wednesday WIP

What a week it’s been – last week it was warm and sunny enough for me to be sitting out in the garden, and this week we’ve had snow!  Still, I’ve been keeping busy…

I’ve spent a vast amount of time cutting up cardboard boxes so that they’re ready to turn into trinket boxes.  I always use old cardboard boxes to make the layers as they’re free, which helps keep costs down, and of course repurposing/recycling is always a good thing… but finding the right sort of cardboard box is trickier than you’d think.  Ideally I like to use boxes which are quite thick, and not printed with anything too garish in case it shows through the envelopes – and whilst my local shop is happy to supply me with boxes, they aren’t always suitable.  Anyway, I’m waffling a bit but basically at the weekend I ended up with two ENORMOUS boxes from IKEA, as a friend was throwing them out.  They were too perfect to turn down, so I took them home… but they filled my studio entirely.  Not good!  Thus I have spent the best part of two days chopping them up into the right sized pieces, and then desperately trying to find room to store those pieces.

I’ve not been entirely successful, as you can see from the photo above I’m surrounded by towering piles of cardboard.  There may well be a promotion on trinket boxes running in my shop very soon!  I have made a start on making some boxes though, and the first to emerge this week was a Lord of the Rings/Hobbit themed one.

I want to make some Discworld themed ones too, but am currently stumped as to where I’ve put my Discworld stamps.  Hmm.

One last thing that’s in progress at the moment is a series of sketches – I’ll show them off properly on Sunday, but in the meantime here are the first two…

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Lundy Island

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!

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Wednesday WIP

I have something a little frivolous to show off today.  My garden is full of various odds and sods, some tasteful and some quirky – one of which was a little sign which read “Keep Off the Dirigible Plums” – a nod to my love of the Potterverse.  On Monday I lost my balance when pottering around (no pun intended), fell on the sign and snapped it.  Oops.

So yesterday I thought I would replace it.  I started off with a sign I inherited from Lush in Carnaby Street when they closed down:

I have a few of these, which I’ve hoarded for years in the hopes they’d come in useful… but apart from making the last dirigible plums sign they haven’t.  Anyway, it’s been a while since I made the first one, which I vaguely remembered painting with white acrylic, so I got out the paint and made a start…

… and then added another coat…

…. and then added more coats of paint than I care to remember, until I ended up with this.

At last, a nice blank canvas!

It took ages, but I do finally have a replacement for the one I broke.  I must say there were probably more productive ways I could have spent the afternoon, but I’m ridiculously pleased to have finished this mini project.

 

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You’ve got mail!

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.

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Feeling under the weather?

Then this is just what the doctor ordered…

Click here to visit the Etsy listing.

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Feeling a bit nostalgic?

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.

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Blanket cape

I don’t think I’ve made an item of clothing since I was 18 or 19, when I made a velvet bodice to wear to a Romeo & Juliet ball.  Sewing has never really been my forte, and it has to be said that the bodice was beautifully embroidered but otherwise very poorly put together as I did the whole lot by hand.

This year I’ve got to grips with sewing machines.  I’m still not brilliant, but I’ve come to really appreciate how much more quickly projects can be completed, and also the range of things that can be done.  Over the past fortnight I’ve used my machine to sew paper, leather and cloth!  I’ll be writing about the leather and paper projects later in the week, but for now here’s a cloth-based one I’d like to show off.

I stumbled across a tutorial by Reese Dixon and loved the finished cape she’d made, and was quite keen on making one but didn’t have a spare blanket… until I took a wander along Portobello Market Friday before last and managed to pick up a rather lovely one for the grand sum of £4.

It really was a good blanket, pure wool and very thick.  A little too thick, truth be told, but I liked the colour so decided to plough ahead with the project anyway.

I followed Reese’s instructions, and it really was trial and error with the fitting, but I got there eventually.  Sewing it together, even with a machine, was a bit fiddly as the blanket was so thick that a double layer would barely fit beneath the foot of the machine, but I persevered and eventually got it done.  One regret is that I didn’t have any brown bias tape, so used a beige-coloured tape instead which works ok but doesn’t quite blend in.  I may replace the edging at some point if I pick up something in a better colour.

Do you want to see it?…

It looks good, doesn’t it?  It should be perfect for throwing on if I’m going out for a ride on my bike as it’s not too cumbersome, allows freedom of arm movement, but should still keep me warm when I’m stationary.  I’ve got a few offcuts of blanket left and I’m currently contemplating adding a pocket to it, just because pockets are always useful.

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Take one vintage school desk…

…and give it a bit of TLC.  That’s what I did this week.

I bought the desk at a car boot sale last Sunday, and although it’s a lovely desk there was one problem: someone had painted it black.  I’m sure they thought they were doing a good thing, and I’m sure it was very practical, but my goodness it sucked all the light out of my studio!

I attacked it with a heat gun, which got most of the paint off, then went over it with a scourer to remove as much as possible (a lot had gone into scratches in the wood).

I have to admit that I lost the will to live after a while, and the back of the desk is still black.  I can tackle that another time!

Once the exterior had been stripped down I lined the inside with pages from an old book (this one).

Ta da!  It looks much better, and it feels better too – bare wood is infinitely nicer to the touch than gloss paint!  I can now settle down comfortably at it next week, and not go blind from squinting

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Cohiba

I’ve finally made another foray into my stash of cigar boxes, and the result is a rather swishy looking notebook housed in a box.

I made a similar book about a year ago (click here to see that blog post) which was definitely a luxury notebook as it was bigger and involved quite a lot of leather.  I loved making that one and it sold immediately but I dithered about making another as I always feel bad when I have to charge lots for a book, even if the work and materials warrant it.

So I made this one simpler.  It’s smaller, as dictated by the size of the box, and I’ve used plain board covered in parcel paper to reinforce the wooden sheets used for the covers.  This version also has cartridge paper for the pages but it’s a lighter weight (140gsm).  Lightweight luxury in a box

This book is available to purchase in my Etsy shop, click here to view.

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A Moleskine mud pie

Matt called me on Friday and I couldn’t answer because I was covered in glue and ink.  When I eventually rang him back he asked what I’d been up to, and I said “making mud pies” … he was, naturally, a bit baffled.  I imagine you are too.

Making mud pies is something I think of as fun and pointless.  You do it when you’re a kid, but when you’re grown up you don’t any more.  So, for me, making a mud pie is something that I do in my studio which is both fun and pointless.

So, what exactly was I doing in my studio on Friday?  Well, I wanted to do something but didn’t really have the energy or focus to work on anything important (I have a couple of commissions which need starting, but Friday just wasn’t a day for that sort of thing).

If you’re a regular reader you’ll know that I stash things, which are often very random, away until I can find a use for them.  Amongst the random things I’ve accumulated were some old Moleskine covers that someone else had discarded.  Two were resurrected into new notebooks and went to new homes quite some time ago, but there was one left.

I didn’t feel in the mood for making a notebook but I did want to do something so I just got on with it and started work.  I had no real aim in mind, other than perhaps experimenting with some inking techniques.  First I covered it with pages from a vintage road atlas…

… then I added a strip of leather to the spine and had a play with some Distress Inks (by Tim Holtz) to give both the edges of the cover and the leather itself a slightly aged/vintaged look…

That random square of leather is just there to show you what the original colour of the leather was before I got all distressy with the ink.  By this stage I’d decided what this was going to be: a sort of folder/folio type thing for holding letters and stationery.  I write a lot of letters, and I figured this would be a good way to tote letters, stationery and stamps around when I’m away from home for a few days.  On that theme I decided to use some brown parcel paper (also slightly distressed with ink) to line the inside.

Looking good, huh?

I’m chuffed to bits with my little mud pie.  It looks great, it’s useful (which is not in the mud pie spirit at all), and I spent a very happy morning in my studio creating it.  I also got to grips with the Distress Inks (which are still quite new to me) and have the satisfaction of having used up yet another bit of tat that was taking up precious studio space.  I’m away for a short break by the seaside at the moment and the mud pie is full of letters, cards, and stamps so that I can catch up with my letters while sitting on the beach (if the weather holds).

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