A family affair book project

I spent much of the day working on my new workplace with my brother who is a fantastic artist and my mom who's fabric skills are great to have around.

It was too much fun to be doing something collaboratively with my family, working together with a common goal: Make functional art that people will enjoy as much as we do.

We got to work on an edition of five books, some featuring art by my brother.

We'll finish the books later today most likely and I'll post more.

Here's a teaser:

A new workbench for a new process

I had plans to get at least five books done today, but life had other plans. A neighbor missed the bus to the next town so I gave him a ride. I ended up visiting a few stores while I was there and before I knew it, half of my day was gone. When I finally got home I was wiped.

I have been working on a workbench about 32 inches long by 24 inches wide for a while now. When my neighbor who is a carpenter and a craftsman himself told me he was interested in my books a light bulb went off in my head. I needed a workbench badly. Up until now I had to constantly clear whatever tool I was using to make way for the next tool in the process of my bookbinding. I essentially had one station for measuring, cutting, pasting, folding, sewing, etc. This really limited my productivity and my flow. My neighbor came knocking today and had something to show me. I followed him to his truck and he had a solid core door waiting for me.

"There's your table Jesse," he said "and let's get you the rest of your wood." He took me into his backyard and started piling on the lumber for me. I thought this would be a nice weekend project and I maybe would have it done in a week or so.

I got to work and about 3 hours later this is what I had:



See that plywood top bench in the foreground? That was my old bench. I decided to mount the new table onto the old one and made one long beautiful bench for all of my needs. I can now set up an assembly line and work my way down the stations. No more moving equipment around, a niche smooth finish that cleans up easily. Ahhh... a nice change of pace.



Here is the bench in action, I mounted on some shelving and put in a power distributor. You can see a preview of some new books I am working on. I will post those when they are done. All in all it was a very productive day.

Coping with my hobby ADHD

"Do what you love and the money will follow" -Marsha Sinetar

 

 

 

So, I finally decided to document my crazy obsession with doing whatever it takes to keep myself busy. What do I do to keep myself busy you ask? Bookbinding.

"Bookbinding? Well that sounds...interesting." Yeah, people still do that apparently.

How did I get started with such an obscure craft?

Funny story actually. I describe myself as a serial ADD hobbyist. I'll start one hobby; say bonsai trees. Then I'll realize that I need a bench to display and work on my bonsais so I need to build one, that requires woodworking. Oh well then I need to learn the basics of working with wood and once I scour thrift stores and garage sales to get the tools I need to build my bonsai bench, I'll realize that I need a woodworking bench to make the bonsai bench. Now, I have the bonsais going and the woodworking to support the bonsai hobby.

A similar thing happened with bookbinding. I started writing about a month and a half ago and in the process I had a need for a nice leather journal to keep track of my mind when I was out and about. So naturally I went out and bought a journal right? Wrong! I couldn't find my ideal journal, so after a few minutes online, I found a nice tutorial on how to make a handmade leather journal.

When I was a kid I wanted the Indiana Jones Grail Diary terribly. The way it fit into Indy's jacket pocket, the little black elastic strap, the rustic cover *sigh*... it all appealed to my 10 year old brain for some reason. It's never too late to fulfill a lifelong dream, so I found a simple tutorial over at zenseeker.net and next thing I knew...

I had my own handmade blank grail diary!

Look at that! Isn't she beeeautiful?

Now, look, I realize that this is probably only interesting to me and a few Jonsians hanging out in front of Skywalker Ranch waiting to get picked up by the Tardis and taken away to 1938 for a chance to get a nod from Indiana himself. But, I just couldn't stop! I was hooked. One book wasn't enough. I needed a smaller one, one with lined pages, one with a cloth cover, a paper cover, yada yada yada... Then I had more than I needed, so I started showing my books to friends and co-workers. Next thing I knew I had sold 9 books in a week and a half, making back the money I put into this "hobby" tenfold. I made an extra week's pay from these 9 little books, now everyone wants one! I'm onto something, I thought, gotta blog it, put 'em on etsy, tell mah friends. Now that's where you come in, tell yer friends, ask me to make you one, they make great Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanza/Solstice-what-have-you gifts.

Where can you get one? Well, I'll have an Etsy shop soon, working on my stock at the moment, but for the time being I'll post my available items here and I can create a custom item on my Etsy to fill special orders. Let me know! I take requests and suggestions for materials/techniques/custom line printed pages/etc. You don't have to buy one, just take part in my (mis)adventures by checking in here periodically.

But if you are interested *wink wink, nudge nudge*...

My base price for a 4 inch by 5.5 inch blank journal with 192 pages is $25. If you want extras such as leather, custom line/grid/etc printed pages and any other ideas you have there will be an additional cost, generally between 5 - 10 dollars per addition. I can also do embossing for an extra fee.

Let's make a deal. You check out my blog periodically and I'll keep feeding your little brain with updates of my obsessions!

Here's a teaser: