temporary

been a while, been a while.. my life seems to be all sorts of "temporary" right now, and i'm not sure if it's going to ever really become "permanent"... so! charging forward, and on to a summary!

haven't worked on too many new things in hawaii, but did come up with things like these silly bumblebee earrings:

i'll be hoping to make more earrings soon, especially with the new little charms i bought in japan, they're adorable and whimsical, in my opinion :D hmm.. maybe i'll just keep them for myself, muahaha!

and finally made a "real" leather book, using a longstitch binding tutorial online, for my dad's friend:


used the suede side up, because the familia liked it better, although i thought the other side looked neat, all spotted and stuff, so much character! but they decided it wasn't "girly" enough for my dad's friend :P at least i got to test out my stamp, as you can see! :D

got a hair cut yesterday, i think i'm gonna need to actually learn how to use a curling iron so that i might make myself a little more presentable for interviews and the like in l.a.! ...what a terrifying notion.

i'm considering mailing all of my stuff from hawaii to l.a. via parcel post, since i won't be needing anything for the one day that i'm in missouri and i'm fairly sure the extra space in my car would be fantastic, but that would probably cost a fortune... plus, i'll just be worried about my pretty supplies sinking into the ocean or something! like my new paper and fabric that i bought in japan!



well, i'll be flying out tuesday, and driving to l.a. over the course of a few days. and then i'll be absolutely engrossed in "breaking dawn" when i snag it at midnight on friday-saturday... although only for about 6 hours probably, that's how long it took for each of the other books. too short! i blame my sister for my will crumbling and new twilight addiction, i refused for so long, boo... haha. ahh well, no more harry potter right? ;)

playing with bindings!

i recently joined the firefly-based big damn crafters street team on etsy, and for may's team challenge about unification day i created this book:

i used a stab binding method (which was a problem because i used my screw punch for the leather cover but not the pages, i used my awl for those and i probably had way too many because it was a pain in the ass to get the damn needle and thread through. i actually ended up breaking a needle, eesh!) as a way to bind (har) the old western and asian styles together into one book. i like it, but i don't know that i'll do it again ;) my first leather book, and also my first binding style other than the hardbound kettle stitch method! i haven't listed it on etsy, because the plan is to give it to my dad for father's day. :D

i did list this book on etsy, however:

i used a coptic binding method (ish... i think the first and last rows weren't done quite right because after i was done i compared it to eva's book that i received in the first best book swap and it looks like i should've looped the stitches a little more) based off of a tutorial i found online (did the same for the stab binding). i rather like this one, i don't think i could've done much different in terms of tension on the stitches because it does sort of pop open when standing up but it lies flat and i believe it's the paper itself that's doing the opening, not the stitching! so that makes me happy :) plus i've been wanting to use my papyrus for quite a while and i'm really glad it looks so awesome with the marbled paper (yep, same paper as used in the background for the leather book hahaha)!