Lovely New Books

I've been challenging myself lately with some new binding techniques and materials.  It's fun, time-consuming, and worth the results...I think anyway.  

I find little tiny bits of time during the day; 15 minutes during naptime (after I pick up a bit and cook a bit), an hour after bedtime and before evening vege-out with the husband time.  Perhaps I'll have more time now that Peter's finals are over.  I'm also gearing up for some sumer course, two web/ graphic courses at MCAD and one at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts...so the book making time slot will probably not get much bigger.  

This first book is made with some Mohawk Superfine text weight paper (the pages, that is) which was super smooth and nice.  I used the coptic-stitch method and sewed some buttony beads onto the front cover which was a lot trickier than I thought it would be.  Inside is some lovely decorative Iris paper.

This skinny guy uses the same long-stich technique but I added glass beads on the spine.  The blue paper inside is some blue art/sketch paper.  Tres nice.
I finished this one today; long stitch using gray thread, green paper, bead closure...pretty putzy.
These are all in my shop now, and so are 4 large sketch books/journals.  Check them out for more detailed pictures.  (If you want).