Information Overload...Almost.

Wow, I think I have just had the more useful and informative afternoon workshop of my life! It was brilliant!

As you will have gathered my aim is to become a bookbinder (at least most of my time) and I have been putting a lot more effort into working towards this recently. To this end I booked myself onto a 'Starting Out' workshop run by the 'Cultural Enterprise Office' which is all focused towards creative businesses. Amazing!

Their webiste alone is stuffed full of more information than you can possibly take in, even after visiting it several times, but it is all organised so that it makes sense and is easy to find. Perfect or what?! It is a Scottish thing but a lot of the info is highly relevant to anyone just getting into starting up/running you very own creative business.

The one and only bad thing about this is that I now have a to-do list about as long as I am tall and, although I am really quite short, that is a lot to get going with! It was helpfully all broken down into bite size chunks however so I have 3 points to work on first and the rest should flow from there. So inspired! (This is also the first time in my life I was excited to learn about tax, have you ever heard anything so crazy?!)

Good luck to all of us carving out our own wee creative corners around the world! :)

A lightbox ate my evening!

I knew I had a few hours to myself tonight so I had big plans for making in-roads on my creative to-do list...enter the lightbox...and now it's almost 10pm! What happened?!

Mostly it was distraction (I like to say I have ADOS - Attention Defecit Ooh Shiny!). I forgot to factor in that although my main challenge of the evening, making myself a pauper's lightbox from a cardboard box, wouldn't take too long playing with it and taking test photos would! Oops...but a fun oops!


Anyway here is the finished product, as rough on the eyes as sandpaper (as my aunt would say) but functional - hooray!

I used tracing paper for the side and top panels to keep the light properly diffuse but I think I need to get at least one better light. The one I was using seemed to have that yellowy cast to it. It's all a learning curve right? :) I was also wondering about playing around with coloured backgrounds... but maybe I should make sure that I can get the simplest version right first! Wish me luck!

If anyone has any tips about lightboxes and photography of books please feel free to share! I also haven't quite figured out how to stand the books up to get total flat-on views, would a hidden book stand work do you think?

Etsy Shop is open! SO scary!

Ok, it's open! OMG! I am really quite scared. Not sure exactly what of, maybe just putting myself our there. I really have to get moving though because, although it is now officially open, I have only listed one thing! I really need to work on my photos...but I want to put more stuff on there right now to make it look a bit more like a 'real shop'.
Please do go and have a look and let me know what you think, I need the advice! Starstruckbooks on Etsy! This is one step closer to my dreams coming true. I am scared but grinning SO much right now! :)

Bee Happy Mini Book

This is just a mini-post to go with the mini-book! I have been working so hard on my new designs, inspired by my recent trip to the land of colour that is Morocco, that all my good intentions of many blogs have fallen by the wayside slightly. Will try harder!

This wee book (only A9!) makes me smile because it is just so bright and jolly, hope it brings a splash of cheery colour to your day! I was so totally smitten by the mini star button/beads that I have used them as the fastener as well as the accents on the end of the wrap-cord, but stars make me happy so they are a perfect fit for the book :)

(It is also an excellent reminder that I need to be working on my photography skills though, especially as I want to take the plunge and get my Etsy shop up and running. Is there anything scarier?!)

Safari Photo Album

I swear that I have been busy in all this time I have been neglecting to communicate with the wider world! I will be proving it in the next couple of months by showing you some of the lovely things that I have been making.
This wee photo album was made for a friend of mine who once went on Safari in Africa and has never forgotten the experience, I swear she almost tried to smuggle a baby elephant home in her hand luggage...

 I up-cycled a rejected old photo-album found in a charity shop to create the basic interior because it was made of lovely handmade paper with rustic looking raffia as photo-holders. I decided that I would stick with the side stab-binding because that meant embelishments and beautiful external stitching (which I love!). I had a lovely patined flat metal-looking bead which was a perfect match for the earthy colour pallete that I was using and the wholw project came together so fast I was amazed.

I covered a couple of board strips to accentuate the side binding and ensure that the bead and the pattern of the stitching would stand out well. These had to be pressed and I was a little worried that the raised pattern on the paper would be obliterated bt they came out just fine, happy days. I left the ends of the side binding threads visible and put several colour-coordinated beads onto each end as finishing touches.

I wanted to be sure that the closure didn't hide any of the detail of the side binding (and the album did need some form of fastening as it was an unlined leather cover) so I gave the front cover an interesting scoop cover with plaited ties leading from each corner round to the back of the book.

This is the back fastening. I put a double loop of leather in place on the back; one part round some of the side binding stitching and the second part left open so that the ties could be threaded through it and then tied in a bow. I actually thought that this was all a bit complicated but my friend sussed it immediately and was quite happy so I guess I stand corrected on that one!

End result, one very happy friend who tells me that she now thinks of Africa and smiles every time she sees this. That's the kind of ending I like! (Although my other friend, who has appointed herself my business mentor, scolded me for giving books away when she thinks that I 'should be selling them and escaping the rat race'. I can't say I disagree with that part but the smile on my friend's face was more than payment enough this time :))

Birthday Book Creation

This wee book was created for my mum for her birthday. She wrote a collection of stories about our family adventures in our summer cottage and I bound them for her. She was thrilled to be 'published'! (I actually found that the printing and collation of the pages was the most challenging part of the whole project and once that was sorted the binding itself was just fun.)


It was an interesting project because the binding had to reflect the feel of the cottage to be sucessful. I decided that it had to be super tactile and 'friendly' and needed to be slightly imperfect and rough around the edges to capture the essence of the unconventional setting.

I used bundled stitching (which I would have loved to straighten up a bit and, in retrosect, should have left a wee bit looser) to give interest on the spine. An old button and short lengths of twine, thread and wool plaited together for the closure fastening, I liked the raggedy ends in the plait giving that slightly unfinshed feel to the tie.

The leather for the cover was specially cut from the edge of the hide to include the fluted and buckled edge so that it didn't look too 'pretty' and perfect and ruin the look that I was going for.

I included several images on blank sides in the book but stitched these in and left the ends visible to keep with the rough handmade feel that I was going for.

She loved it :)

Time...

Wow, I can't believe that time flies so fast. I think that work is sucking out all the spare minutes and seconds of my days and churning them into more numbers in the never-ending spreadsheets.
Within these over-full days I must reclaim some little scraps of time for myself, a few moments in which to let my imagination sing and my fingers to shape the sparks that it creates. A touch more self discipline and timetabling to give my self some creative freedom, how oxymoronic.
Let the wild rumpus begin!