Rose notebook

A quick update to show off my latest creation, a rose-themed notebook.

The cover was painted with metallic gold ink and then varnished. To my mild surprise but delight, the varnish picked up some of the gold color and carried it across the paper rose cutout, which is now slightly metallic as well.

The interior paper is all handmade (not by me). Half the pages are white with faint thread fibers, while the other half contain real rose petals on one side. In retrospect, I should have glued these pages with the petals facing down, to present the more writeable side of the paper. Still, the petals can be written around or notes can be taken on the reverse.

The pages are single sheets which can be torn out, making this useful as a notebook. The front cover is attached only to the back of the spine and can therefore fold out of the way behind the back cover. Here's a quick diagram of the structure:

This notebook is now available for sale on my Etsy store.

Tiny books

How to practice the techniques of bookbinding in a non-resource-intensive manner?

Tiny books!  Each is about 2.5" tall and 1.5" wide.  The pages were cut from sheets of tracing paper (which is suitably thin for this scale).

The first is a traditional book on raised cords with a scrap of leather on the spine, and scraps of marbled paper on the covers.  Observe: my first successful French groove!

For the second, I decided to try a coptic binding.  The first such binding I saw was a revelation; a book that shows off the stitching of its own spine?  Wait—you can do that?

Yes.  Yes, you can.  My first try was a little sloppy around the headbands, but I intend to get better.  Here's what it looks like from the inside:

I may add a ribbon to hold it closed; I think my stitches were a little too tight, because this one loves to fly open.  Like a puppy with an open door, I sweartogod.

The next project, currently in the works, is a rose-themed notebook with tear-out pages.  The paper is handmade and contains real rose petals.  Which...might be kind of hard to write on, but I'm counting on it being cool enough that nobody will mind.  (There aren't that many of them.)