Last bit of the cover stock from the damaged poster. This is the Buttonhole Stitch Binding from Keith Smith’s Non-Adhesive Bindings book. I didn’t fold the cover all the way over to the spine in this one, just made flaps like a dust jacket, and the spine is only folded double from where the cutout is made. The result is that the spine doesn’t feel as substantial to me as the others did (only two layers instead of three), and I found when I pulled the threads tight I wore grooves in the edges where the threads went over the top and bottom. But I like the way the vertical threads cross the horizontal lines in the drawing.

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Folding paper can be relaxing. We have broad window sills in our condo, about 21" deep, and sometimes I’ll work there, folding the paper into sections while listening to an audio book and watching the people and the traffic below me. I’ll get into a rhythm of picking up a large sheet of paper, matching the corners and finger-pressing the fold, and setting it aside, and then moving to the next sheet. Then I’ll crease all the folds with a bone folder and tear them (or not), restack the paper, and make the next fold on all the sheets.

Now if only I could motivate my butt to get out the PVA and make some cases.

One more journal in the Long Stitch bindings series. This is a sibling journal to About the Size Journal #1: same size, same paper, same poster, but with a variation on the spine stitching.

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Playing with some more long stitch bindings. This is the classic Long Stitch through Slotted Cover binding from Keith Smith’s Non-Adhesive Bindings book, except that I poked four holes in the spine instead of using slots. Like the Running with Scissors journal, I used part of a damaged Jay Ryan print for the cover, and 24 lb Mohawk Superfine for the pages. The journal measures 4-1/2 inches wide by 5-3/4 inches high and has 192 pages in 8 sections.

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I’m shaking things up a bit with my bookbinding and trying some new things. I’ve been inspired by some of the work Dennis Yuen has done with exposed bindings on hardcover journals, but I haven’t done any long stitch bindings in quite a while (since summer 2006, apparently), so I’m practicing, and my first result is the Running with Scissors journal.

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I’ve been toying with the idea of posting some books on Etsy for a while now, but I never got around to it. There is actually a fair bit of work involved in photographing the items and writing up the descriptions and figuring out shipping charges and setting up Paypal with a bank account.

Lucky for me I’ve just become unemployed, and I now have time (for the time being) to do all this stuff. So, you can now visit the Bathtub Dreamer store at Etsy and purchase the Bunnies and Moiré photo album shown above, or one of my other photo albums or Coptic- or hard-bound journals, like this Spot Journal.

This hardcover photo album makes the perfect gift and is easier to make than you might think. It uses a purchased photo album block, so most of the hard work is done already. All you have to do is assemble the cover (the “case”) and glue the book block in place. With the wide selection of book cloth and decorative papers available, it’s easy to customize an album for any occasion.

Although this tutorial talks about photo albums, there are many types of pre-made book blocks available, including blank journals, trip diaries, date and address books, and even wine and baby journals. These instructions will work for any type of book block.

1. Tools and materials
2. Cutting the cover boards and spine piece
3. Cutting the book cloth and cover paper
4. Assembling the case
5. Casing in the book block

For more photo album pictures, visit my bookbinding stream on Flickr.

I have a B6 Gocco printer and I laid in a healthy cache of supplies when it appeared that the manufacturer would no longer support the product. But I rarely use it, mainly because I’m intimidated by the act of drawing something that is worthy of using the precious supplies (not to mention printing multiples thereof).

But Christmas is coming, and maybe I’m thinking about it early enough this year to print some cards.

In the meantime, I’ve turned to Etsy for some Gocco inspiration. The following are a few of the items that impressed me in my search. I am not the artist – click on the images to go to the artist’s Etsy shop.

This is the Butterfly Garden 2 print from TreeTop Studio. I love the simple graphics and the blue-gray color:

This is the Three Trees Make a Forest card from one girl two dogs:

Magic Jelly does a great job of tight registration in her Fox and Flowers print – mine never turn out this well:

The Red Branches and Bird print from Sugarloop really pops:

And more:

• Placemats with red poppies and Aqua Poppies enclosure cards from Michelle Brusegaard
• Zombie Plague Christmas Ornaments from Tina Seamonster (lots of Gocco in her shop)
• I like the trailer image on the Home is Where I Am cards from Two Guitars
• Etsy search for items tagged ‘Gocco’. I only made it through the first 35 or so pages of items!
• UDATED: And how could I forget to search Flickr for Gocco?

A while back I took a Gocco printing class at the San Francisco Center for the Book and I made some artist trading cards (ATCs) for this web site using a photo I took of the Golden Gate Bridge and reduced to line art. Then I stuck the cards in a box and forgot about them, because for a long time this web site was half abandoned, and anyway I don’t often meet up with people to whom I could give the cards.

Then I was thinking of ways to package the stitch markers and came up with this:

If there weren’t already 182 pages of stitch markers on Etsy I’d think about starting up something. The two Etsy shops I looked at both seemed to be doing a brisk business in markers, though, so maybe there’s something to that.

One of my early bookbinding instructors repeatedly drilled into us the instruction, “Don’t throw away your paper scraps, no matter how small.” She took unwanted scraps from class with her to use for creating collaged covers when she taught bookbinding to children. I am not very good at the “no matter how small” part, but I do save any scraps that seem large enough to be useful for something, someday.

Last weekend, in my drive to use up existing supplies before purchasing new ones, I went through some of my boxes to see what I had around. I found a large pile of decorative paper scraps, and a number of pieces of card stock and watercolor paper that I had apparently precut in anticipation of making ATCs and postcards. I decided to see what I could make out of it all.

I’m not very imaginative when it comes to this kind of thing, so massive collages and multi-media pieces were unlikely. I did, however, come up with some simply decorated items that I might actually use. So, here is my list of things to do with paper scraps.

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