A Yen For Paper

HANDMADE LAMPSHADE

Tired of looking at the naked electric light bulb in my creative space the other day, I thought that I would try my hand at making a japanese inspired lampshade in a somewhat rustic style. I printed out some of the photos from a japanese trip onto heavy duty "papier calque" in pale green and punched holes near the top, and threaded through some hemp fibre. I lashed together some short pieces of bamboo in order to construct the frame and added some criss-cross fibres to enable me to attach it to the ceiling wire. I then added some extra half sections of bamboo to the base of the photos to help weight them down a bit. Et Voila!

Well perhaps in need of a few minor adjustments/improvements, but since I do require another lampshade, I think I might give it another go.

PINE PRINTS

Was playing around with nature printing the other day and since there are lots of pine trees out back here and I like them very much, I was using some small branches to make prints with.

I used white gouache paint, watered down to the consistency of single cream, to do the printing - I like it to be thick enough to give a bit of texture, as well as pattern. I pressed it down onto Somerset Velvet paper - the newsprint grey shade, which has a lovely feel to it. The result is quite subtle, but I rather like that.

 

I decided to use the print as a book cover and since I wanted the whole project to have a natural simplicity about it, I decided to use an uncomplicated and soft binding. I therefore used two folios inside and stitched it as above with natural linen thread - well waxed, of course.

 

This is the front cover of the little journal once it was complete. Wonder what I could use for printing with next - Hmm lots of nice fallen leaves around .....

BLUEPRINT FOR A BOOK

Since yesterday was the first Sunday of the month (November already - how scary is that!) I went into Aix to visit the monthly market of old and secondhand books, held in the Place de l'Hotel de Ville. I sauntered around the various stalls - nothing really grabbed me until the very moment I was about to leave when this bundle of architects blueprints from the beginning of last century caught my eye.

 

They seem to be the work of a firm called "Etablissements Tricotel", based at Asnieres in Paris. Aren't they great! Such a wonderful colour and the designs are beautiful - ranging from the Hotel de la Poste in Rouen, to Mme Cornu's rustic garden furniture. I wish I knew how these were made - if you know perhaps you could let me in on the secret.

 

Of course the idea behind purchasing them was to use them in some of my bookbinding endeavours, so I made this simple little pamplet yesterday evening, just cos I couldn't wait to see one made up - I am rather impatient sometimes! Here are a few more close-up photos of the finished article.

 

 

 

Wonder how many of the projects that were constructed have lasted as long as the blueprints?

LOOM BINDING

Towards the end of summer a friend came to visit for a week of creative activity, involving inks, paint, paper, thread, and various items from the park out back. Below is one of the lovely creations that she made during her stay - beautiful, isn't it?

 

Anyway, I decided to see if I could adapt this idea to make some kind of binding, even though this would be more decorative than practical. My first attempt (not shown) was a bit wibbly wobbly, since it was held together only with the warp threads of the weaving.

Consequently the journal pictured here is my second attempt, where I sewed the folios onto tape initially and then did the loom part afterwards.

Although it was just a bit of fun, and wouldn't really stand up to any rough treatment, I was rather pleased with the end result. Now I will have to weave some thoughts together to grace its pages.

POSTCARDS RECYCLED

I was enjoying making the Japanese Kangxi bindings the other day, when it dawned on me, that it would be fun to use postcards as front covers for some of these little notebooks.

I don’t know if you are like me, but I suspect you might be - and in that case you will have quite a large pile of cards and postcards that you have gleaned from your trips to art galleries, museum shops etc, or you have picked up some of those free publicity postcards you find in cafe’s sometimes, or kept cards sent to you by friends and family.  Anyway, you always think - oh that’s an interesting image, I will take that and do something with it later.  Well this is the something that I finally decided to do and I thought you might like to try it too.

I looked for front cover cards that were A6 or slightly larger and then trimmed them to size, I also cut a plain card of the same size for the back cover and folded some A5 paper in half to make the text block of the book, making sure to keep all of the open sides at the spine edge of the notebook.

Then you simply make a template for marking the holes and pierce right through the book after aligning the pages and cover and using a clip to keep them in place.All that is left to do now is to do the stitching which is really quite simple, provided you make the holes large enough to accommodate the thickness of the needle and strong thread you intend to use. 

If you are unsure about the method of stitching there are various little tutorials for Japanese stab bindings on youtube.com, you can check them out here or you could treat yourself to a copy of the book “Japanese Bookbinding” by Kōjirō Ikegami, which I find to be an excellent, well illustrated manual with clear step by step instructions for all sorts of Japanese bindings.

Hope you enjoy using up your stash of postcards!

EXPANDING SKETCHBOOK JOURNAL

What can you make out of bits and bobs such as these? The answer is an expanding sketchbook journal - and the lovely thing about it is that you can incorporate whatever takes your fancy.

 

I was commissioned to make this particular binding in lovely neutral papers and I find the resulting journal very pleasing, tactile and intriguing at the same time.

 

It is in fact a type of concertina binding as you can see, with Codex sewn into both the mountain and the valley folds of the pleated spine.  The ribbon is added to give some stability and to stop in from expanding completely out of control!

 

Although you can, of course keep adding to it as you wish by sewing in extra drawings or collaging more or less indefinitely.

This one includes double pages for landscape drawings/images,

 

little envelopes for keeping your treasures safe,

 

and sewn pocket flaps for tucking in any interesting small items.

My hope for this little journal is that is will be well used and well loved, and that it will become more and more precious as it is further customised and personalised. It's a far cry from Moleskine, but me I kind of prefer it.

PUBLISHED TODAY!

Hurray! The first Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper has been published today.  You can check out all of the mouth-watering stationery goodies here, including my yummy Japanese bound notebooks, of course.  Enjoy!

CARNIVAL

If like me you are a lover of pens, pencils and especially paper, then check out the Carnival, announced below.

"It’s time for something new! Introducing the Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper, which will kick off here at Notebook Stories on Tuesday, August 4th. Future editions will be hosted by The Pen Addict on September 8th , Office Supply Geek on October 6th, and other blogs yet to be determined.

What is the Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper? Will there be cotton candy and rides?

The Carnival is a monthly collection of the best blog posts about notebooks, journals, pens, pencils, paper products and other related topics, appearing at a different blog the first Tuesday of every month. Any unhealthy foods and unnatural G-force levels will be purely virtual."

You can read more about it at www.notebookstories.com

DECORATIVE JAPANESE BINDINGS

As you can see, I have been doing quite a lot of binding this past week. Quite a pile of it, in fact.

 

I had been loathe to cut into my treasured sheets of handmade Washi, (some of which I showed in my previous post), they were so beautiful - several of them even looked like they were lit from within and the closer I looked at them, the more special they became. However, at the beginning of the week, I decided to make a start, and having begun, I just couldn't stop. 

Each time I completed one, I thought "Oh, I wonder what this paper would look like once it was bound - they were so pleasing to look at, to hold and to use. The notebook above shows the Kangxi variation on the Four-Hole Binding.

 

This green and pink one with the lovely gold splashes is the Hemp-Leaf binding, or asa-no-ha toji, to give it its correct Japanese name.

These binding look deceptively simple, but require a lot of accurate work, in order to achieve a good standard of finish. I think I will need to make quite a few more, before I achieve anything even approaching the Japanese sample I have.

 

Ah well, I can always dream. One of the aesthetics espoused by Japanese Design - "Bukkyo" - refers to constant refinement and improvement. So I guess I shall just have to bind a whole heap more :-)

INSPIRATIONAL JAPANESE PAPER

In one of my first posts, I mentioned one of my favourite washi shops in Tokyo, namely Ozu Washi. I was tremendously fortunate to be able to visit there again in May as well as the Japan Traditional Craft Centre and thought you might like a peak at some of the truly beautiful handmade and hand-dyed paper that I purchased on my most recent trip.
The image above is just a little part of one of my favourite sheets.

But the trouble is that they are all beautiful and funds are limited naturally, so I just have to spend hours browsing, and trying to decide which ones I can't bear to leave behind. This one reminds me of the paintings my children did at the Rudolph Steiner school.

However, the more closely I look at them the more their beauty is revealed.  I can easily spend 3 hours in there and not even notice that time has been passing.

Each one is so different from the last and a work of art really in its own right. That's what makes it so difficult to choose.

I find these papers truly inspiring, but sometimes I find it extremely difficult to cut into a sheet such as this. I feel instead that they should be exhibited in a gallery somewhere.

Please let me know what you think?