Fabulous Steampunk Video

Here is a fabulous video from YouTube regarding the real definition of steampunk.  I loved it and wanted to share.

congratulations to the author of this video -- well done!!

A.R.T. Lesson 10

This time our challenge was the Guest book.  Once again we were working with a single sheet of paper.  The initial folds were straight forward and following the directions for the cuts was easy enough.  It got a bit complicated after that point.  Once the cuts were made refolding the single sheet required a bit of dexterity and another picture in the book would have been nice.  We were lucky here that our workshop leaders Janice and Pam took pictures along the way and posted them in our gallery.  That gave use and extra reference point.

Anyway, here is the finished product.  I punched two small holes in the accordion spine and used a ribbon to keep the accordion together.  I used some of my definition stamps as content for this book. 

As always, content is the hardest part of the book creation.  I usually find that content drives the style of the book and in this workshop we are working with the style first and the content second.  We are being exposed to a wide variety of styles and without this challenge I don't think that I would be systematically working my way through all that this book has to offer.

Thank you, Janice and Pam.

A.R.T. Lesson 9

The House Book was a two part structure.  The original structure, the "house" portion, was made from a rectangle of card stock.  I used green card stock choosing to go with a play on words to create my "greenhouse".  I used some wrought iron stamps on the exterior of my "greenhouse" to try and give it a glass and iron effect. 

The second part of the book structure was the signature that was added to each of the "door" openings in the house.  In keeping with my greenhouse motif I used handmade paper with plant inclusions.  We used the previously practised Shorts book as the signature.  I used botanical stamps to decorate these pages.

A.R.T. Lesson 8

Once again with the Artists of the Round Table, our challenge from Alisa Golden's Book "Making Handmade Books:100+ Bindings, Structures and Forms" involved creating a book from a single sheet of paper.  This time the books was called a T Cut book.  This was because the several of the folds were cut in a T shape and then the paper was folded into book form.

I wasn't terribly creative with my decoration on this one.  The number of pages brought to mind a counting book so I brought out my stamps and used a number set and a small image set from a calendar stamp set that I have to create this mini counting book.  My great niece was pleased with the result.

The second book was called a Room book because the resulting book looks like a room when it is open. 

I used some Laurel Burch stamps and coloured them in with markers.  The book collapses in at the sides to fold flat.

Bookmaking Adventures February Challenge -- Accordion Books

I've already posted my accordion book for the February adventure.  A challenge was posted on the board  - use an unusual or unexpected page shape for your accordion book.

I looked around my workroom and saw a package of cardboard feet hanging on my wall.  They have been there for a while.  I don't know what my intention was when I got them.  They must have been a bargain bin find because I can't say that I find them an indispensable item.  But they are and unusual page shape.

It was also around this time that I had been blog hopping and ended up, quite by accident and I'm sure I couldn't duplicate the sequence of events again, at a blog called Real Yogis Say '%@"!'  I did not make up that title.  Yogi Amber, in her March 31, 2011 post, wrote an original poem called "Until You Walk in My Shoes" that was truly inspiring.  It was about making judgements about people and then learning their stories. 

I had to take a bit of creative license with her work since I had feet not shoes and not all of the verses had the feel that I needed but for the most part it was a perfect fit.(no pun intended).  So ....   Until You Walk in My Shoes became    Until You Walk in My Life  and my feet became multi coloured or multi ethnic because the words crossed all ethnic and cultural borders.

I used alcohol inks to add colour and jump rings to connect the pages.

A.R.T. Lesson 7

We had a week break which gave us some time to catch up on our lessons in the 100 Handmade Books Workshop in the Artists of the Round Table Group.  This week's lesson involved making a venetian blind book and a brush book.

For the venetian blind book I chose to illustrate mine with two images.  I used a dark image for one side of my blind and a complementary white image that could be seen when you viewed the blind from the other direction.

For the Brush book, I used text weight, deckle edged paper.  For content I used two ee cummings poems  - and began them one on each side so that they met in the middle, which seemed in keeping with ee cummings style.  You would read one poem, then flip the book over and read the other.

The small band of paper at the end, secures the book together.  It is a simple structure but was quite effective for the poetry.

Adventures in Bookbinding - Accordion Book

As part of the adventure this month, we looked at tutorial videos for the making of accordion books.  I found one example that used envelopes as the pages of the accordion.  I adapted the method of attaching the envelopes together to leave a pocket at each fold, both front and back.  This will make a perfect vehicle for displaying tags.