Butterflies and Ivy
A couple of books I just completed and shipped off to Japan. The pink one (Butterflies) is a stained glass design converted to leather. The smaller book is based on a medium size version I did with ivy and flowers all over it. I altered it a little, particularly with the colors, adding more colors to the flowers and to the leaves.
More photos can be seen in my Flickr set.
The Phoenix
My customer wanted an anniversary gift for her husband. A journal with something special on the cover but she wasn’t completely sure what she wanted. She really like the skull book I did ages ago for Michelle/Crow Haven Farm but since the skull is used to represent their guild (Dark Artists Guild), it’s not a design that I would use for non-DAG members. (I really should do a journal with one of the copyright free skulls I’ve got). I did send her some images of copyright free skulls that I had but she also went looking online for something and came up with a sugar skull and a phoenix that she liked. While the sugar skull was cool looking, I thought the phoenix was awesome. However, both of them were taken from a blog done by a tattoo artist. The artist (James Garza) designs some incredible tattoos and does some amazing drawings and paintings. I found myself in the position of asking for licensing for the first time.
The original drawing. I was a little nervous translating this to a tooled design.
Noveeeember!
My cup runneth over this November in media world. The Dreaming is finally releasing their new album (FINALLY!) on November 1 (with a bjd on the cover–beyond cool). November 12, Primeval Series 5 starts up on BBC-America, which means they’ll hopefully show up on i-Tunes or Amazon the next day. They left us on a cliffie (yes, I admit I was actually yelling at Connor on my computer screen to not get in the car). And, of course, November 15 is THE day. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is released and I’m all tingly inside about it. And crossing my fingers that they don’t tell us at the last minute that the PC version is being pushed back to February or something horrific like that.
Of course, the real kicker is that I’m so slammed with custom book orders, I probably won’t have time to enjoy anything but the new music. But it’s a good problem to have so I’m not complaining. Which leads me to a quick recap of some recent custom orders.
Just finished this last night. Customer supplied image, his initials in Old English text, with straps and buckles.
Steampunk Reboot
A long, long time ago, in a gallery far, far away I had one of my Steampunk Temporal Displacement Books included in an exhibit of journals. It didn’t sell. Actually, it’s still in my Etsy shop for sale, although it gets a lot of attention in treasuries and people’s favorites.
Commissions
It’s a nice problem to have–several commissions waiting to be completed. I’d always known that people like custom options but have found myself getting a lot more customers since I’ve been listing various custom books in my Etsy shop. I’ve done several personalized pamphlets in various sizes, a medium size book with logo on the cover, and have a couple of very large books I’m currently working on.
A refillable notebook, 4" x 4" with a K carved on the cover.
Wings of Dreams
One thing I’ve learned doing custom orders is that there are a lot of very thoughtful people out there in the world. I’m frequently touched by the level of thought people put into their gifts. I suppose some of that goes hand-in-hand with the type of custom orders I do–leather working is open to so many possibilities that almost any design idea can be replicated, to a degree. Of course, I’m not skilled enough for certain designs (people and most animal designs are still out of my league, I think) but there are still so many options left.
Dreams Wings journal.
Magic Numbers?
5 and 100. I was doing an online survey yesterday and it dawned on me that I’ve actually been in business for 5 years now! Yep, it surprised me. Of course, we have to define “in business” I suppose. For me, “in business” means that I’ve had my business license and online presence for 5 years now, although there are long stretches of time when I really wasn’t paying much attention to it. But, hey, I didn’t say I’ve had a “successful” business for 5 years now. It’s starting to pick up, though, since I’ve been actively working on it recently but I’ve got a long way to go before I consider it really “successful.”
Leather "A" pamphlet I recently completed for a customer.
And the 100?
I saw a ship
So, adding a bunch of listings to my shop last week seemed to work. I got an order yesterday for a pamphlet with a ship (?!) carved on the cover. EEK! The most complex thing I’d carved was a skull and it didn’t end up being overly difficult to figure out. But a ship!
This was the one he chose.
To the Max
So, what have I been doing besides neglecting my blog? Everything from the extremely scary (being evaluated for bone cancer–I don’t have it) to the mundane (yeah, laundry, cleaning, blah). Not a lot of art in between, though, and I’d all but completely abandoned my blog (hey, it’s only been about a month and half). I currently have three posts I want/need to write but am just jumping in right now with a few quick updates.
A refillable, personalized leather notepad I made
Return of the BIG Journal
About one year ago, I completed a journal for a customer. It took me about three months to complete and was a pretty massive size, measuring 13″ x 10″ and weighing over 7 pounds with 400 pages of tea-stained paper.
Large, leather, hand-carved heptagram, and 400 pp of tea-stained paper.