And I thought the other one was big…

This one’s definitely got it beat. Weighing in at 7 pounds and change, this book measures just over 13″ x 10″ with 400 pages of tea-stained drawing paper.

The first book I made that I would consider BIG was the DAG journal–a journal made for a dollmaker friend who’s in the Dark Artists Guild. It was big (for me), measuring 9″ x 6″ x 3″ and holding around 3o0 pages, I think. Some of the paper was watercolor paper, so it was quite thick.

The heptagram book obviously has it beat. It was challenging but very satisfying work figuring out the design and mechanics of the book. I sewed the text block on tapes and laminated the tapes between the cover boards (each cover was a set of boards, glued together cross grain).

Everything about this book was massive, to me. The design, the piece of leather I used, the text block….I had to get out the Workmate work bench from the garage (and dust it off) because my little tabletop work bench was way too small. And forget about fitting this thing into my “tiny” book press (it can only hold up to 11″ x 9″). I used some acrylic boards I had and some large clamps (again with the dusting off since they were in the garage) and my husband’s help to get any kind of press action going.

The cover design came out pretty well and the customer opted to keep things very simple so we ended up just with the heptagram carved on the front. It was interesting work trying to keep the cover damp enough to carve the whole design. Fortunately, my work tends to lend itself to distressed looks, color variations, and imperfections so having some slight color variations looked right, particularly on this piece with its hand-torn, tea-stained pages.

This was a huge project for me, but, as I mentioned before, very satisfying to complete. I know I’m a bit biased but I think it turned out well and the customer was happy, so I’m happy.

Tags: blank journal, book arts, Book of Shadows, Bookbinding, full-leather binding, hand bookbinding, hand carving leather, handbound books, handbound journal, heptagram, Lady Artisan, leather