Day 19/365
This is the aftermath of an evening spent hand-dying paper. I’ve started using more colours and overlays with colour washes. I’m pretty excited to see how they turn out as books. These will become lovely covers for some very special journals!
Day 18/365
In preparation for the One of a Kind Christmas show here in Toronto, I’ve been testing different techniques for cover decoration. One of my first experiments was a series of painted covers.
It’s a pared-down, simplified and more minimal variation of my painted and printed matchbook style journals. 
I really enjoy the process of hand decorating a large sheet and then cutting it into covers. Each book ends up being unique and one of a kind.
Day 17/365
I draw a lot of inspiration from colour, real time and in photos. This post is dedicated to a small slice of my life where colour was my everything. It couldn’t be helped, I was surrounded by it. I’m talking about my time overseas, in Italy.
I used to be a painter, colour was one of the most important parts of that process for me. Now that I’m a bookbinder I find different ways of using colour: fancy paper, reclaimed materials, cover adornments, etc. And when I use my own journals: pens. Oh how I love a good spectrum of pens. I have multiple sets of rainbow-hued markers, ballpoint pens, prismacolour, copic, sharpies, staedtler fineliners. It’s like Christmas every time I use them, so I use them a lot! (When I had a day job, I was the person who took one of every colour of highlighter and pen from the supply room in an attempt to brighten up an otherwise dreary cubicle). These photos are kind of like my pen sets; inspirational, bright, they put a smile on my face and make my colour-loving self sing.
I don’t remember where all these photos were taken, I think some in Venice and some in Tuscany. You can tell by the colour palettes of the buildings. How amazing is that? To know where you are by the colours of the walls lining the streets. I do remember that green shutters were the common denominator no matter where I went.
The richness of these last two places in Florence are so intense. A different feel from the top two bright and sunny Venice towns. The monochromatic-like palette is a lovely collection of ochre, amber, oranges and browns.
Have you ever thought about the colours you use when journalling? Sometimes I like to put a background wash of a light/pale colour (using the broad-tipped, sheer marker sets) on the page before writing with a matching colour on top (with a fineliner, of course). And yes, I enjoy using more than one kind of pen/marker in a single journal entry, you should try it! I’d love to hear about it if you do. What are your favourite colours to journal with?
Day 16/365
Just a friendly reminder: my Coptic Binding Workshop is this sunday at Arts Market! It’ll be loads of fun, with light refreshment, merriment and a great way to learn a new skill (or brush up on old an old skill). Also, it’s just in time to start on making holiday gifts, if that’s your sort of thing.
Find out more here.
If you can’t make this one, don’t fret, there are a few more dates on the Workshops tab of my site, and there are a few more in the works for november and december. I’ll announce them shortly.
Day 15/365
Day 14/365
Last week I wrote about testing indigo-dying techniques, where I used watercolour paints and washi paper. Today, I’m going to talk about my experience using real indigo dye on both washi paper and handmade flax/abaca and hemp/abaca papers (from the folks over at Paperhouse Studio here in Toronto)
If you’ve ever tried your hand at the popular Shibori technique, which is used for dying fabric with indigo, you’ll be familiar with the science side of this process. Once indigo dye (which comes from a plant leaf) is mixed and heating up in a vat, the trick is not to stir it or otherwise let oxygen into the vat. When the paper is dipped into the dye, it comes out green at first (as seen in the above photo), and then changes to that awesome indigo blue once the dye has oxidized (as seen in the photo below).
That’s the main idea anyways, I won’t pretend to know it all! But there is something exciting about combining science and art. I cannot put my finger on it, but it made the process quite enjoyable and ultimately gave me a real appreciation for the finished product.
To see what I did with some of these papers, take a look at this journal. And stay tuned as I’m still working on projects with the bulk of the papers I dyed.
Day 13/365
Meet the mini cigar book! It’s a small book, just the right size for email addresses (this is the size I use at arts and crafts fairs to collect names), favourite quotes, tweets, horizon sketches, you get the idea.
It’s also a pretty great way to use up the ends of cigar boxes after I make the larger cousins of this book, found here. I find that often some of my favourite projects happen spontaneously and unexpectedly, after a main project is finished. I’ll be looking at the off-cuts and rejected bits of the larger project and realize the potential of the leftovers.
Day 12/365
A glimpse of the tidiest corner of the studio mid-prep for the busy holiday season that is, gasp, just around the corner!!
I’ve already sewn these text blocks, next I’ll make the covers and then case them in. There’s a nice surprise of page materials and the covers are full bookcloth (made by me!), I’m pretty excited for these journals!
Day 11/365
Next weekend is the Coptic Bookbinding Class I’ll be teaching at the Arts Market on College! This is a great hands-on class that teaches how to make a really nice hard cover journal. Participants will leave with a finished journal, made from scratch!
I personally love the coptic binding for its immediacy as a non-adhesive binding (we will be pasting covers though, but the binding itself is non-adhesive). Once the basic stitch is learned there are many variation possibilities, making this a very versatile binding technique.
It’s a great way to get started on personalized holiday gifts, too.
It runs on Sunday, October 26 11:30am – 2:30pm. Go here to learn more and see how to register, or check out my workshops page for other upcoming dates.
Day 10/365
No, this isn’t really all of my journals. It’s just the most organized-looking photo of some of my favourites and currently in-use journals. What I want to talk about today are some of the uses of my journals, maybe they’ll inspire you too!
Some of these are books that I’ve handbound, and others are books I’ve collected over the years, from other hand binders. There are several from Italy (Florence, Venice and Rome), and many from other binders here in Toronto and across Canada. I feel I should come clean and admit that I don’t use all of them. A few are in the queue to replace books with only a few blank pages left.
While I have journals for: ideas, to-do lists, sketches, favourite quotes, dreams, ramblings and other categorized observations, I usually have one daily journal. This is the one that goes everywhere with me, fits in my purse, is rugged and tough yet beautiful enough that I sometimes use it as ‘advertising my craft’ when out on the town. It’s also the test-run of my new indigo journals and is pictured above.
It’s pretty liberating to have this book as a catch-all for everything, no stress about perfect penmanship, clean sketches or having the best ideas. I use it for everything: to-do lists, measurements of projects, contact information, ideas, sketches. It’s a lovely snippet of this time in my life. Looking back on my other, older, daily books, it’s interesting to see what my focus was at the time, what my inpirations and dreams were all about.
If you have a book that you really love and want to use but just aren’t sure, this is where I suggest to start; a book of plenty. I’d love to hear how it goes!
Sprouts Press 