Book #017

This was a little different: the book construction was minimal - pages and a cover stapled together. Most of the work (and the fun!) was in the content. I don't know what made me decide to do it this way. I guess I just felt like smearing paint around some more. I used some mailroom supply rubber stamps that I got at the dollar store ages ago. They came in stacked sets of three, self inking, and they are almost spent. But the words are great: cancelled, confidential, urgent, air mail, original, duplicate, confirmation...and two more I can't remember just now. Not 'completed', that's another stamp. Oh well - it's not all that urgent is it?

So, I drew (ultrafine Sharpie) and then colored (my old Prang watercolors from my childhood, believe it or not) a little picture for 7 of the stamps. It was very flow-of-consciousness...a nice way to spend an evening.

My friend Lena came to the studio yesterday evening. With the holidays and snow and all, I hadn't seen her in a long time, and it was really good to visit. She brought me three very nifty things that she bought online ('cause today's my birthday); I'll post some pictures of them later on. We had an inspiring conversation about life, crafting, stuff. I always feel inspired after a visit with Lena. And then about 10pm we went out for pie and coffee. I think pie and coffee is one of my favorite little rituals. It meant a lot to my dad; he loved his pie. He was a traveling salesman, although with a very small territory so he wasn't ever away, except maybe one night a month when he went to Bellingham. Name a city/town in Western Washington and he could tell you where to get good pie.

Book #007

Whew. A bit of a nail-biter today. That happens when you make something, decide you don't like it, make something else, don't like it either, go back to #1 and decide it's ok after all so you'd better get on the ball and finish it. Yes, indeed.

I don't know if I can explain the structure of Book #007; it's simple enough, but difficult to describe. You know how you can take two identical shapes cut from paper, slit one halfway up from the bottom and the other halfway down from the top, and then you can slide them together to make a 3 dimensional shape? This book is sort of like that, but half the pages have slots cut in the center of the folded edge, and the others have two notches cut at the ends of the folded edge. Then you roll, ease and wrestle a notched page through the slot in a slotted page and fit the notches into the ends of the slot. Yes, it does work. You keep connecting the pages this way and pretty soon you have a nice interlocking book. See the little contrasting triangle at the corners of some of the pages, along the centerfold? Those are the pages below, peeking through the notches in the page above. The long triangles in the middle of the pages, along the fold, are the slots in the slotted pages.

One of these 365 days I'll make another one out of two colors of paper - it's easier to see that way. But today I made it out of two sheets of heavy paper that had been used to test the alignment on our printer. They had interesting blue patterns that I couldn't throw away...so I made a book. But it needed some dressing up and I wanted to do more so I used an online generator (more of which later) and had it make up some names for magical articles and clothing. Jackpot! Thus was the book of Magic Garments born: the Ornate Coat of Charisma, the Shirt of Fiery Deflection, the Boots of Chaotic Ritual, the Hat of Deadly Dust Zones, Pants of Water Breath, the Crystal Gown of Worldlyness (sic) and the Vest of Alter Aura. Oh, and Vicious Fish Socks, but they were an afterthought.

About the generator: just go here. Expect to spend some time. You've been warned.