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.
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.
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.
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.
Treat Yourself Winners!
As promised, I’m posting the winner of the Treat Yourself giveaway I hosted here. Unfortunately, a few things came up last week and I didn’t get a chance to wrap the giveaway up then. Without further ado, the winners:
The "Grand" Prize
Personalized Leather Pamphlet, Part III
We currently have our text block ready to go, our leather cover carved, stamped and dyed and we’re left with adding a snap and then sewing the pamphlet together. If you missed the previous parts, the last two posts include: Part I–preparing the text block and cutting the cover; Part II–carving the design and then dying and coloring the cover. Part III will finish it out with putting a finish on the cover, punching the spine holes, setting the snap and sewing the book.
A detail of the cover on the pamphlet.
Personalized Leather Pamphlet, Part I
I got an order just before the Thanksgiving holiday for a personalized leather pamphlet. I actually started working on it when I suddenly realized that I could take some photos during the process and post a “how-it’s-done” post on my blog. This isn’t really a step-by-step tutorial so much as an explanation of what all goes into making one of these pamphlets.
The Tan and Brown personalized pamphlet
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.
