This Week's Creations...

A Guest Book for my Shop. 

It's covered in "Bird and Nest" paper, by Cavallini and has a decorative edge of deep turquoise shot silk. 

I frayed the edge, to show the lovely golden brown threads, that contrast so well with the brown ink  of the bird design.   It has a binding of mouse-brown waxed linen thread.

There are 20 pages of white writing paper inside, with a decorative wrap round the paper at the bound edge, which matches the mouse-brown cover linings.   

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A Coptic-stitch Photo Album, for Ric and Rachel, as a gift for Ric's sister.

It's covered in another Cavallini paper, with a collage design.  This is such a popular paper - I have made about a dozen books with this paper on the covers!

It has 30 pages of card, with a wrapped "spacer" round each pair of pages, to allow for photos to be stuck inside without the book bulging out of shape.  As it would be so thick, we decided on a Coptic stitch binding, which allows the book to open fully all the way through (the "hinge" is effectively right on the fold, which is sewn in a sort of chain stitch all the way down).

The cover linings are in strawberry-red art paper and I cut the edge of each spacer, with a fancy edging punch.   As it was a birthday gift for the customer's sister, I used gold tissue to gift-wrap the book and enclosed a little message card, telling her who it was from and a bit about the book's construction.  

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And this is what was on my binding table yesterday.  It's a Wedding Guest book, for Maria.  It has a 10-Needle Coptic binding in two colours.  There are 20 pages of stiff Fabriano artists paper and decorative wraps, to allow space for a few photos to be added, along with the writing. 

It's going to be a small wedding, in South Africa.  I think the bride and groom want to stick Polaroids into the album and get each couple to write next to their picture. 

This binding was finished last night and the book is under weights, being pressed.  I will make a custom label, for the first inside page, then it will be on its way, on Monday morning, ready for a departure to S.A. next week! 

I'll post a couple more photos of this, when it's all finished!