A Book a Day? What's Up With That?


Hi, and welcome to this year-long project. So what's this all about and how did it happen, you might ask. In mid 2007, artist Noah Scalin decided to make a skull out of anything he could find, every day for a year. It stretched him in ways he never imagined, as an artist, a writer and a person. His experience turned into a blog that went viral, and then a book.

Others have picked up on the idea: 365 Hearts, 365 Masks, 365 Bears drawn on a cellphone, 365 paper napkin mustaches.
I wanted to play, too, and I chose books. I love books, I know a bit about making books (thanks to my talented book-maker sister, Marilyn Worrix), and they're broad enough in definition to give me a lot of creative leeway.

The whole point is not really the books. The idea is to stretch myself in many ways as an artist and a person, to set up a discipline, stick with it and see what that teaches me.

I hope you'll join with me and follow along on the journey chronicled here, and let me know what you think.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Book 155 - Tiny Leather Journal-Red Leather for Necklace/Booklace

Darn blogger! It would not let me post this last night. But it WAS made, I swear it.

Anyway, here's a cute tiny book of quotes, three signatures bound with a long stitch binding to a nice piece of red leather. The tiny pages are printed with 16 different quotations about books. The binding is stitched with brown waxed hemp thread, which also is chain braided to create a wrap-around tie to close the little book.

This is going to get a large metal jump ring through a hole at the top of the spine so it can be hung on a chain or cord as a nacklace/booklace. A nice tiny book; it would be a great gift for a book lover (and aren't we all???)



3 comments:

  1. Darling tiny book...and red, too! ;)

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  2. How did you make this?! Where did you get the leather?!! I have this project I'm working on, I would love to produce something like this!

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  3. Anita - The leather was a scrap I had left over from other projects. If you want to do something small like this and have no access to leather scrap, try checking out thrift shops/Goodwill/Salvation Army etc. for a leather skirt or jacket or something you could cut up. For these tiny necklace books, you only need a piece about 1 1/2" x 3".

    Cut or tear the paper for your pages to the size they will be when the book is open. Fold them in half and crease. Nest the folded pages inside each other to form signatures. The number of sigs will depend on how many pages you need. With an awl or needle, poke 2 holes in the crease of each signature, equidistant from the top and bottom. Cut your scrap of leather to size, fold it in half. Mark the two holes on the spine, making sure they will line up with the holes in the signatures. Poke these holes in the leather. With heavy, non-stretchy thread, stitch the signatures to the leather. Find or make some kind of thong, ribbon or tie to keep the book closed and attach it however you want.

    These are very abbreviated instructions. If you are completely new to book making, try to find a good basic book in the library. Or order from Amazon. You'll notice a couple of good suggestions with Amazon links at the upper right of this page.

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