Lee and I were lucky enough to represent the Canberra Bookbinders' Guild on 666 Radio.  Melanie Tait who hosts the Canberrafile was delightful and put us both at ease.  The message we wanted to get across was about our upcoming exhibition and the diversity of the exhibits from fine bookbinding to confronting art.
Because my little eco book was chosen for the invitation I was invited to bring it along with me when we met with Melanie.  I needed then to dress it up a little by presenting it in a box.  What fun was that!

This is the first time I had made a clamshell box and not only that, I was working from an instruction manual using my own measurements.  Just the type of challenge I like.
I used eco printing paper to cover the box and I am very pleased with the final result.

I have never participated in a round robin journal art swap before.  Very exciting and also a bit daunting.  What if the people I'm swapping with dislike my contribution.  Probably I'll never know but still.
There are 10 pages in all over 10 months by 10 different artists.
My theme is cats.  We have an indoor cat who is absolutely beautiful.  She has never wanted or even tried to go outside even with the door open.   I'm happy about that as cats don't seem to be environmentally sound when left to their own devices.

I quite like the look of my pages as they go out.  Hopefully what I have done won't be too restricting on the other participants.

I was reading through an old edition of Bound and Lettered and came across an article that resonated very clearly to me.  Bound and Lettered is a great magazine.  Nothing better than getting a new edition and having the luxury of curling up in a chair.  

The article is by Sandy Wagner.  She is lamenting about the beautiful papers that she has created that are very carefully stored away, brought out every so often, sorted and then stored again.  She goes on to write about how she finally liberates the paper and uses it in different projects.

This is exactly what I do with my own paper and I was inspired by her article and her beautiful creations to at least use a little of my stash.

I got so carried away with the project that I didn't take any photos on the progress.  I made a miniature book so I could use the scraps of book cloth that I have collected and the concertina page was made from a small slice of calligraphy made in Massimo's workshop.  It was lovely to remember Massimo as I worked.  He has to be one of the most delightful people I have met and is so generous with his time and knowledge.

And then! yesterday I spent a lovely afternoon with Bev and Vicki learning how to make slip cases to protect my books.  This was perfect timing for this little book.  Once the math is out of the way the slip cases are easy to construct and look lovely.  Hmmm... must think of a way to decorated them.

I borrowed Mary Kaye Seckler's 'Book Arts' book from a friend because I wanted to try out the 'Geisha's Hideaway'.  It is a really lovely book to look at with skewers used as closures.  Inside the covers is a book block and a pencil case.  Just gorgeous.

The first hurdle to overcome was the amount of paper required to cover this book.  It needs a 45.7 cm or 18 inch length of paper just for the surrounds.  This would have been easy before I knew about such things as paper grain!  Previously (in blissful ignorance) I would cut up the paper to suit myself - easy!  With the advent of knowledge this made life better in some respects (fewer misshaped books) but also harder making sure that the grain of the book board matched the grain of the paper.   

For this book I decided to do some gelli prints on old maps so that I could get the length as well as the grain required and because I love gelli printing.

Gelli printing is great fun and I generally use leaves to make the patterns.  See gelli prints.  This time I used a lino print of a butterfly.  That worked well too.

The first part of the process went really well and was finished very quickly.  I was so pleased with both the time taken as well as how easy it was to follow the instructions.   

Yes, well, pride etc.  The next bit was the pencil box that looks so cute.  The pencil box needs to fit before the book block is put into the book case.  
First of all I couldn't remember how to make and cover a box and I couldn't work out the instructions either.  Managed to get all that together after numerous attempts and made a very credible box.  Just lovely.  Now to fit it into the book case.

Sob... it is too high!  I will have to start over with the pencil box.  Hmmm.... I think that I will leave it to another day.

It is very pleasant doing the washing up with the scent of hyacinths.  One of them has grown much taller than the rest.  I'm not entirely sure why.  It is just enough to see how pretty they are and how lovely they smell. 

I have just finished the concertina binding that I started earlier using Grosgrain ribbon.  It certainly works beautifully.  I chose red ribbon to compliment my marbled paper.
This type of binding is quite time consuming but it turns out well in the end.  I'm not sure if I followed the correct procedures exactly but I am pleased with the result and will use the technique again.  I should quickly do another one to consolidate how it is done in my mind.  

In an earlier post I blogged about the Canberra Craft Bookbinders Guild 'Binding Challenge'.  
I have recently completed the second part of the challenge which was to:

"Go to this website: http://www.musicoutfitters.com/topsongs/1975.htm
Access the drop down menu on the right hand side, change the year to the year you turned 18 or 21, whichever is more significant to you and then select a song that defines “GOOD” and make a book/object for the first of your 4 boxes/compartments."


I had lots of fun with this one.  Can't say that it is my favourite song of all time but for that particular year it was pretty good.

Embossed Celtic card for my friend Margaret's birthday.

Another lovely day spent perfecting (or at least trying to perfect) Coptic binding with Wendy.  I used some of the lovely eco prints for the cover and the beads.  
I decorated the papers inside the book with embossing.  Embossing is quite hard to capture in photos but I have tried to show a little of what some of the pages look like.  I am particularly fond of the embossed cat.  I use it frequently.  
I am quite happy with how the book turned out.

Spent a lovely day with Vicki and Bev being shown the intricacies of a special type of concertina binding.  Now I have numerous photos of the process but have only managed to complete two 'leaves' of it so far.   I love the way that it looks.
I used some marbling that I had done some years ago in a Joan Ajala's workshop and piano roll paper.