Friday Favorites: Vintage Book Lover's Gift Guide

I've recently come across some adorable gifts for my fellow vintage book lovers - enjoy!

 

1. Beautiful photographic print from f2images called In The Study ($8). 
2. Rustic Word Earrings ($22), created by Paper Memoirs. 
3. Vintage Book iPhone Charger ($68), designed by Rich Neeley and sold at Anthropologie.
4. Vintage Book Snowman ($22), made by HiButterfly.

Where Have I Been?

It's been a while since I posted on my blog - what have I been up to?  The picture below should give you some idea.  By day I work for an organization that promotes downtown Nashua, New Hampshire and that includes putting on large community events. 

Below is our biggest one of the year - the Winter Holiday Stroll, which takes place annually on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and this year we had crowd of approximately 35,000 people. The event included 60 different entertainment acts - musicians, bands, choruses, dance groups, astronomers, magicians, ice sculptors and much more.  Plus a procession with Santa on a fire truck, lighting of the city's tree, food, shopping etc. 

It's a huge amount of work for our 2 person office (plus hundreds of volunteers) and it hasn't left much time for making books or my store (or a personal life, for that matter - my family hardly recognizes me!)

Photos The Telegraph

We'll be back to the regularly scheduled program shortly!

Double Dip Travel Journal

I was cleaning out the spare bedroom last week and came across an old travel journal from 2005 documenting a family vacation in Vermont.  All the wonderful memories from that trip came flooding back to me when I read it - it was such a gift stumbling across it unexpectedly.

The Double Dip

In a piece written for the Ladies Home Journal, Sandy Fernandez refers to memories as ‘one of the secret weapons of happiness because they offer a double dip’.  She continues to say that it’s scientifically proven that thinking back on a pleasant experience stimulates the same area of the brain that made the event pleasurable in the first place.  

This was definitely true for me looking through the old Vermont album.  

  

Tips:

• Why not try leafing through a scrapbook, photo album or journal you created and see if you re-experience the original joy of the vacation.
•  Keep your scrapbooks out and enjoy them often - don't keep them locked in a closet.
•  Create journals and scrapbooks to document the everyday as well as vacations.  

 

Further reading:

• Project Life by Ali Edwards
• Calendar Tutorial by Kate Crane
• 6 Journaling Ideas by Ali Manning

Thanks for stopping by! 

Halloween Stab Bound Book

I tried another book binding method figuring that it didn't look too challenging - Japanese Stab Binding.  Boy was I wrong!

The covers were created with book board covered with scrapbooking paper and black book cloth plus waxed linen thread.  I used the following two videos by Paul Baumgartner as my main resource.

 

The main issues I encountered were:

•  Punching the holes through the book block and covers.  I tried to use an awl and it wasn't strong enough.  This created ragged edges on the sewing holes and caused the covers and book block to be misaligned.  Solution: Use the right tool - Japanese Screw Punch (I've just ordered one from Hollanders.)

• I used too much glue on the text block, but that is something that can be remedied with practice.  Some instructions don't include gluing the text block, but I found it really helped to keep the holes aligned when punching the sewing holes.

It was okay for a first attempt - I'll be trying more in the coming weeks.  Let me know in the comments if you've made a book with this style binding.

I'm having a declutter in my studio and trying to save some money to take two book arts classes at the Mass College of Art in January.  I have some stamps listed on Splitcoaststampers and up top on the  Stamps for Sale page.  Many more unmounted stamps to be added - check back again soon.

Thanks for stopping by!

Ali

Free Printable Owl Calendar

Like many others, I love owls - I even have a Pinterest board devoted to them!  I was delighted to discover this adorable FREE customizable owl calendar that you can download from My Barn Owl.  There are over 40 beautiful owl illustrations to choose from, including this one by Magdalena T. 

 

Download your free calendar here.

Have a wonderful weekend! And don't forget to check out my Pinterest Boards for more inspiration!

Ali

Free Christmas Collage Sheet

We've had the first snow of the season in New England today, so now I'm in the mood for Christmas.  This lovely vintage collage sheet from Retro Art Cafe caught my eye this morning.  It's available free on their blog - click here to visit their site and download the image for your artwork.

Have a wonderful day!

Postcard Journal

A few weeks ago I posted a vintage postcard album I made with a binding called single sheet sewing using an exposed coptic stitch.  I decided to make another one using modern postcards that are blank on one side so it could function as a notebook or journal.

The front and back covers have two silver eyelets and all the postcards are sewn together with European linen thread.



The postcards are from a lovely Etsy store called The Paris Print Shop.  Their photography is beautiful and I really like how their collections are themed by color.

Above is binding on the inside front cover.

This would be a fun travel journal project.  Each day of your vacation, purchase a postcard and write what you did that day on the back.  Then bind all the postcards together to form a cute little book that is a record of your trip.

Here's the finished journal:

Thanks for visiting.  Don't forget to visit my Pinterest Boards for more vintage paper inspiration!

Linking to Crafty, Scrappy, Happy Link Party!