leather journals and bookmaking

2.26 books

This weekend I was really excited to make a bunch of little journals. They are similar to my little book that I purchased at an art show in 2009. The pages are even smaller though, at 3″x2.25″

When I was in college I took a bookmaking class and have since made a few books that I’ve sold through my shop. The above image is a hardcover book I made and one of the first items I ever sold in my etsy shop back in 2006. Below is another hardcover book in my shop currently.

and I’ve made many super teensie tiny handbound books like below

Little books fit perfectly into coin machine balls 

I even used to make tiny books on earrings, but I don’t have pierced ears, so I always felt kind of weird about offering an item that I couldn’t even enjoy myself. I love making tiny things so I wouldn’t rule out ever making them again, and well, now that I have even brought them up I’m sure to want to make some more.

I still have my book cradle that I made in college. One end fell off and so I craftily cut up an old book cover to replace the missing end.

Since that first bookmaking class I’ve pretty much only ever made hardcover books on my own. I really do love my little book and so I thought “why not try and make a little softcover handbound journal of my own.” I brought out my old college textbook for a refreshener. Everything went well on the first one, and so I made several more!

2.26 book open

Similar to the hardcover books I’ve made, the new ones have a variety of papers inside, including graph, drawing paper, vintage papers and some lined paper that I’ve made myself.

2.26 book

They were fun to make and I hope to make some more in other sizes.

While looking for a link to my college text book I saw this awesome looking book on making mini books,  and I think I’ve seen this one at our local Barnes and Noble and have heard good things about it.

Also, I realized while composing this post that as soon as a book has a leather cover (whether hardcover or soft) it automatically becomes a journal in my mind. Even if the pages don’t really lend themselves to journaling. Why is that? The leather that I used to make these little books were bought in a bag of remnant leather scraps, thus the small size of books.

robayre

Hi, I'm Robyn and I was Hatched from a Kinder Surprise Egg. Graphic Designer by day, Maker of things by night. I have worked as a graphic artist professionally since I was 16 years old. Went on to get my Bachelors of Art from NIU. I like to share my Artwork online at flickr.com/photos/robayre and on my own personal website http://www.robayre.com. I also have an online shop http://www.robayre.etsy.com where you can find more of my "crafty" sorts of things, as well as a random piece of artwork here and there. Oh, and I'm also an occasional contributor to Artomat (artomat.org).

4 thoughts on “leather journals and bookmaking

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