Leather Journals

I've finally taken some time to do the photography work so I could list some of my handmade leather journals in my etsy shop. I got these 6 listed today, more to come when I have time to do more photography work, which I so struggle with. These have high quality watercolor paper pages which are great for painting on but work just as well for writing or drawing. The inside cover pages vary from my hand stenciled designs to my handpainted paste paper to Japanese paper. They are $50, shipping included. Check them out HERE.

Back to journal making

The watercolor paper needed to finish up leather journals finally arrived.........via slowboat..........but I guess that's what one gets with a free shipping offer so I can't really complain.

 I got all the paper cut for the remaining 12 journals I want to make. Six of them still needed end papers so I decided to do some stenciling.

Here are the 6 end papers that need to sit for a while, the Shiva Paintstiks need to cure. The end papers get folded over the 'books' of watercolor pages so the design on the right of each paper is in the front of the journal, design(s) on the left are the back page in the journal. Each of these goes perfectly with the leather colors and buttons chosen.

I also got 2 journals put together, both of those I used some of my paste paper for the end papers.....forgot to take a picture of those.

Leather journals.......

In spite of being out of the studio too many days this week I did make some time for journal making. 

Here I'm auditioning a button - the final step in the making of a journal

Here they are - sorry no pictures of the insides with the lovely/creative end papers. I've got watercolor paper cut to make 6 more, then I've got leather cut for 12 more but I made a math error when ordering paper and don't have enough so more is on the way from Dick Blick. Many of these will end up for sale in my etsy shop in the not too distant future.

"Who you looking at?"  Bailey's bed behind me when I sit at the computer - he can sleep like he was doing here, before I rudely woke him up, or he can lay his head on the window sill and watch the forest critters.

Journal making

My life doesn't seem my own these days which results in very little time weaving. Lo and behold I had the entire day at home yesterday and I could have woven on that 3 scarf silk warp that's been sitting on a loom for weeks. But I just couldn't get into it. I couldn't sew because my Bernina is in for maintenance. I looked at the pile (on the floor, for months) of already cut leather, big folder filled with watercolor paper waiting to be cut into journal pages and fun papers for end covers for the journals. I thought - I'll start working on making all those journals, then I can get that pile off the floor and into a nice box of finished journals. Of course, this will take a while because I have a lot of supplies but it sounds like a fun activity for right now.

Here are some leathers paired with my homemade paste paper that will be coordinating end papers. The paste paper is so fun and I'm so glad to have a good use for it.....you see, I made it many years ago with my dear friend Janette when we had a paste paper play day. Janette lost her very long battle with cancer back in 2011 - I thought about her all afternoon while planning out which paste papers will go with which leathers.

Some black leather will get paste paper end covers, others will get Asian paper that I'll use spray adhesive to adhere them to watercolor paper so they have some heft.

These leather covers will all get Asian paper as end covers.

So, this is the paper picked out for 15 different journals. Then there are at least as many pieces of leather cut out for more journals but I have no more end paper so those I'll do what I've done on past journals, either watercolor paint the end papers or stencil them. I'll concentrate on those after I've made all of these journals.  Yesterday I did get 2 journals made and paper cut for several more......but a friend came over to buy some roving so we spent time visiting instead of me working on journals......time well spent visiting with a dear friend.  Eventually journals will show up in my etsy shop......but they need to be created and then comes the dreaded photography.........

Excitement here is a bear opening the bird seed pail and eating seed one evening, next evening he tried to carry the pail off but heard Sam open the front door so he dropped it. Then overnight he decided to pull down our very high steel cable holding bird feeders between trees - one feeder is missing. I want to put the pail out this evening so we can see it, Sam doesn't want to lose the pail.....

Getting an attitude adjustment

I decided I need an attitude adjustment so I'm working on that now. There are too many things in life that cannot be changed easily, if at all, so I've got to work around them. I'm cutting back my news watching....no, not hiding my head in the sand but if something is going to upset and I can't do a thing to fix it I'm going to try and keep it from cluttering up my mind.  I did spend the entire day in the studio, which was great, even if it wasn't all creative time.......just being in there was good for my soul.

 I posted some journals I recently made, here, I hadn't stenciled the inside cover of the green one at that point so I did it this morning. I'll take this journal over to the coast with me for drawing/writing.

I put a painted tencel warp on the loom and started auditioning wefts. I've got two scarves to weave on this warp so I need to find two different weft colors. Two of these are ok but I'm not really excited about any of them. I've got shelves of tencel but I don't think there's the perfect color. I'll look at it with fresh eyes in the morning and decide what colors will work best.

Leather journals......

Recently I spent a little time making some leather bound journals - they all have watercolor paper pages so they're suitable not only for writing in but also for painting

A gray leather with cover page of my watercolor brush design - I'm not a painter as you can tell, it is really pretty in person as I used metallic sparkly watercolors, this one has an antler button closure

A lovely dark red leather that had a great natural uneven edge that I utilized on the cover, it has a wood button. The inside cover page was a Japanese paper that I photo-mounted to watercolor paper

What I thought was black leather but I guess it's really a dark dark blue, oh well.......I used a black and gold vintage button and Japanese paper for the cover paper

A lovely brown leather with more Japanese paper for the cover page, wooden button

And this one is my new personal journal to keep over on the coast - I used one of the shells I've found on the beach as the closure. The cover page inside is plain watercolor paper that I'm going to stencil shells on - just haven't gotten to that yet.

I've got two other journals finished but still need to find the perfect button closures for them.

A bit of this and that..........

 We spent the past 4 days on the coast. I did get the loom warped up over there for lots of mug rugs out of 3/2 perle cotton. Quick to weave, as a matter of fact it takes longer to hemstitch both ends than to weave the mug rug. I'll finish up this warp next time over. I'm loving this argyle look pattern - I might have to weave some towels using this draft in the not too distant future.

I posted a leather bound journal I made in a class last summer but I forgot to post any pictures of journals that I made for gifts this fall. Here's one of them. I used an antler button as a closure. I played with watercolors on the inside front & back cover sheets to go with whatever color leather I used for the journal.  I still have a way too big of stash of leather I picked up in the fall at Oregon Leather in Eugene so there will be many more journals made this year. At some point I'd love to try making a journal out of handwoven fabric but will have to do much thinking on how to finish the raw edges...........

Fun weekend

This past weekend I took a watercolor journal making class on the coast.  It was great fun, learned lots, and will be making more journals here and there over the coming years. Many thanks to my instructor Mary who not only taught a great class but has also enabled me to spend some money on a couple books, tools, nice paper, leather, etc. etc.

Here is the outside of my journal - that's leather - pink leather!  I forgot to take a photo of the spine where it shows how I sewed the books (sections of watercolor paper) into the journal - I used a waxed linen in the same teal color as my leather tie closure. It was tempting to put a button closure on but I've decided I want to try embossing the leather with a rubber stamp, I thought a decorative button plus the embossing would be too much. Next journal will get a beautiful button closure.

Here's the inside of my journal.  I'm wondering if I could use handwoven fabric for a journal cover.....would have to back it and figure out something for the raw edges without creating too much bulk. I don't know if I have any suitable leftover scraps at the moment to sample with but I will give thought to weaving extra on a perfect warp in the future.

And here's the back page with the colophon which Mary said we should add to our books. I looked up a definition and it's "A statement at the end of a book, typically with a printer's emblem, giving information about it's authorship and printing. Mary said in artist's book they may include the type of paper used. Since I went totally out of my comfort zone with the pink leather I thought my colophon page should be colorful too. I only had a regular black pen and some colored pencils over there so this is what I came up with. I plan on doing some watercolor washes on other pages, maybe some stamping, need to put my name and contact info in the front of my journal but will wait until I do a little playing with the watercolors on that page.

Sunday morning we went blueberry picking again. Twin Creeks Farm south of Bandon has 5000 berry bushes and they're still loaded. We picked another 20+ pounds. I baked a blueberry cobbler for Sam since he said I've never baked him cobbler in the 33+ years we've been married and he loves cobbler and has fond memories of his grandmother's from down on the farm.  I'm a crisp or pie girl myself but I made the cobbler.  It's good but he had to admit maybe it tasted better when he was on the farm visiting his grandparents - looks like crisp and pie are next up.........