I have not blogged about making books in a while. This is not because I didn’t make books. On the contrary: It’s been a while since I made so many of them. I am also selling them, which makes me very happy. My fastest sell so far was the day before yesterday when one of my husband’s co-workers visited us, saw the book I was just about to finish (only the last signature and the cover was missing), and decided to buy it. The next day, hubby took it to work.
For me book making can be like a competition with myself: Today I made 2, let’s see whether I can make it 4 tomorrow! I like making small editions, because it means that every single book takes a lot less time. The hardcover pamphlets were a small edition, so to say. And I also started my second series of journals that I intent to keep available. Yesterday I finished the first five books, you can see them in the photo, and a sixth is ready to be sewn. (I have not have the time to make photos yet, so the following pictures are all not from the series.) The shared features of Write it up! Journals are:
- Fabric covers
- Pencil stamp on the front cover, many of them also carry the words: Write it up!
- 192 pages from a creme white paper
- page size is about 5″ x 6.3″ or 12.5cm x 16cm
- 4 pouches at the end to hold ephemeral stuff like cinema entry card, business cards, dried flowers, or whatever you would like to keep with your journal.
Nach meiner Serie von Reisetagebüchern, habe ich jetzt eine zweite Serie, in der die Bücher sich verschiedene Designelemente teilen:
- sie sind alle in Buchleinen gebunden
- haben einen Linoldruck von einem Bleistift auf dem Vorderdeckel, und die meisten tragen auch die Worte: “Write it up!”
- 192 cremefarbene Seiten
- Seitenformat ist etwa 12.5cm x 16cm
- Am Ende des Buches finden sich 4 Taschen, in denen man Kleinigkeiten wie Kinokarten, Visitenkarten, getrocknete Blumen, oder ähnliches unterbringen kann
Es macht mir Spaß, kleine Editionen zu machen, und diese Serien von Tagebücher sind ja so etwas wie kleine Editionen. Ich fühle mich gerade allerdings auch etwas außer Atem: Gestern habe ich fünf dieser Bücher als Anfang gebunden – die Deckel waren allerdings schon fertig. Ich hab’ das Gefühl, ich muss mal wieder etwas Tempo aus meiner Arbeit rausnehmen, um Zeit für kreativere Arbeit zu bekommen. Es macht Spaß, den Stapel der fertigen Bücher wachsen zu sehen, wenn man eine Edition macht. Aber dafür ist das Machen dieser Bücher dann eben auch ein wenig mechanisch, meditiativ, und wenig kreativ.
Ich war in der letzten Zeit aber auch noch mit anderen Dingen beschäftigt. Insbesondere mit einigen Auftragsarbeiten. Das mache ich besonders gerne, weil es dabei fast immer ein Problem zu lösen gilt. Einige der Problemlösungen habt ihr schon gesehen: Das Butterfly-Buttonhole Experiment war ja eine Lösung für ein Photoalbum. Es gibt oben auf der Seite eine neue Rubrik “Pick up of custom orders” in denen ich die letzten dieser Arbeiten vorstelle.
Although I hugely enjoy myself when I see that I can work quickly, I also feel a little out of breath at the moment. I started into this year with the intention of a new work style: I vowed to myself not to try to finish something before starting somethings else. I wanted to see to it that I make a little art, a little craft, and a little paperwork every day. – And I just failed to maintain this for a longer time. I’ll need to take everything a little slower again, and take my time to think about new designs even through there are a couple of ready-made covers waiting to be filled with paper.
Other than this Journals, I already mentioned several times (becaues I liked them so much) that I had custom orders. They all got finished before Easter. I love custom orders. Especially when customers want something special. When there is a problem involved that needs to be solved. Maybe you already noted the new tab on the top of this page with the title “Pick up of custom orders”. This is not really the place where they are picked up (I just liked the title), but the showcase for them.- I would have blogged in more detail about the landscape books, but when they got finished I was too busy to find the time to write about them, and now they seem like a past thing to me. But maybe you’ll enjoy looking at them on that page. This is why the tab is still there, although the books already got picked up.
And now I am going to finish the 6th write it up! journal before I start my next project. – I cannot explain it, but I have to have my desk cleared before turning to something new.
Have a nice weekend!
Edit: They are now listed in my shop, where you can see a lot of images, too. And also some magic wallets and another travel sized journal are available, too.