Day 13-Gem Excess

As I've posted before, I'm currently in Tucson for the annual gem and jewelry shows. And I have to say I'm exhausted. I walked miles today just from tent to tent. And that was just two shows. There are over 40 going on all over town. I have seen entirely too many beads, rocks, slabs, precious gems, and sterling. It's all starting to run together.

The sheer volume of merchandise changing hands in Tucson this month is staggering. For something generally small and weighed in carats, the rocks here likely add up to several thousand tons. And there are even more beads--millions of beads in every size, shape and color, glass, silver, stone, porcelain. It's truly mind-boggling. And the finished jewelry--who knew there was so much of it in the world? To wander the aisles of these shows, you certainly wouldn't think there were any financial problems anywhere in the world, and certainly no poverty or hunger.

So today's book is meant to comment on that extreme excess. It's a stab bound book with a cover cut from a tote bag one of the companies was handing out today. It's like a woven papery cloth. The pages of the book are all full-color adds cut from the pages of the shows' guidebook. Dozens of pages of color pictures of beads, stones and jewelry. The binding is done with copper wire, the kind wire-wrap jewelry artists often use. After threading it through the holes punched in the pages and cover, I twisted it closed and coiled the ends up like a wire-wrap jewelry piece. Flipping through the dozens of pages of ads is an amazing look through the world of contemporary gems and jewelry.

Day 12-Rhodonite Bead Book

Well, I did warn you at the bgining that some of this year's worth of books might be,well, ephemeral. Here's one you'll never be able to pick up and read, write in, or put on a shelf. In fact, it's already gone. It doesn't exist anymore.

I spent the day wandering around a few giant bead and gem shows in Tucson. Overwhelming, really, and tomorrow will be more of the same. And I spent way too much money on beads. So what better than to make a book out of beads.

I took some rhodonite beads I bought today and laid them out on my black sweater to make the book front. The spine is made from four big rectangles of tiger eye plus a few small round tiger eye beads at the top. The "pages" showing at the top are made of rutilated quartz beads. The whole book is about 4" high x 3" wide. Enjoy the pix. The "book" is no more. One day it will be a necklace. Forgive the quality of the photos. Shooting in a hotel room by wall light is not the ideal conditions.

Day 11-Hairy Little Journal

I love to make these hairy little leather journals. I've done many of them--both because I like them and because... well, they sell, always an incentive.

This fat little journal is made with hair-on cowhide. The pages are hand-torn Arches Text Wove art paper. The book is stitched with waxed linen thread using the long stitch, which attaches the signatures directly through the leather of the spine. This kind of binding is great for a journal because the book opens flat, making it easy to write in.


The irregular raw edge of the leather skin was left intact for the front flap. It is closed with a piece of leather lace that wraps around a deer antler button. That keeps it securly closed and adds to the rustic look. The book measures approx. 4" x 5" and is 1" thick with 60 pages (120 counting both sides).

Since I'm in Tucson for the annual Gem/Mineral/Bead shows, this was a good book to make. I was able to bring everything with me in a small baggie--a piece of leather, pre-torn pages, x-acto knife, leather punch, needle and waxed linen thread. I bought the antler button and leather lace at the show today.

Perhaps tomorrow I'll do something quite different and more show related.

Day 10, February 2nd - Orange You Glad?

This one's a little silly, but it was fun. And it's almost all recycled. A green book.

I started with a small empty orange juice can I found in the kitchen. I cut the top off with one of those can openers that lifts the whole lid off with no sharp edge. I used some bright orange scrap paper, (a leftover Halloween party flyer) and cut 16 circles a little smaller than the inside diameter of the can. I folded the circles in half, then glued half of one circle to half of another, then added the next in  the same way until I had 8 circles glued together. I made two of these. Then I glued a longish piece of green embroidery floss into the last unglued circle half, forming the complete globe. The long green thread was anchored at the bottom of the can, threaded through the opening in the can top and then attached to a green embroidery floss pom-pom on the top.

The book is designed so that when you lift up on the pom-pom, it opens the can lid and pulls up the thread, bringing the two oranges with it, with their 8 "pages" each.

So, is this a book? Well, I said at the start I wanted to stretch the definition of a book. So yes, I think it is. It opens and closes, it has paper pages, and they are "bound" by the central thread. Yeah, it's a book.

The next few days will be challenging and I hope I can keep up. I am going out of town for four days, to Tucson to the Gem and Bead shows. I'll be in a hotel three nights and at the shows all day. I'm taking a very basic "book kit" with me: scissors, Xacto knife, a glue stick, tape, a few pieces of leather and some scrap paper, needles and thread, a little wire. If that's not enough, I'll have to try to make books out of what I can find in the hotel room or at the shows. I'm hoping my internet access will be sufficient to post here. Till then...

Day 9, February 1st - A Bass Journal

Fishermen like to brag... and keep count of what they got (or even the ones that got away, so they can lie about them).  They need a little journal to record their triumphs in.

So today I present a "Bass Journal" for recording those glorious moments. The idea for this little book was triggered by a pile of Arizona Game & Fish Dept. fish cut-outs we had sitting around. I used the bass tag as a template for the pages, which are printed in the same image but very washed out so they can be written on and still be readable. I also interspersed some of the original card stock tags throughout the book. The biggest challenge was cutting out the individual pages neatly so they lined up correctly. Die-cutter! Die-cutter!

Once all the pages were stacked, I punched holes through the mouth and strung them onto a copper wire "fishhook" to hang from. To use the book, just fan the pages out one at a time.

This book measures 8" long by 3 1/2" high, not counting the 2" long copper hook. Hope you enjoy it.

Day 8, January 30th - Wave Action Flip Book

Today's book is a little flip book. You probably all made at least one of these as kids. You draw or print a picture on the pages of a book, making it just slightly different on each page, then flip the pages to make the image appear to move. Actually, it's exactly what movies do--take thousands of still photos of action at a high rate of frames per second, then show them fast so the images blend into one another.

This book is called "Wave Action." It has approx. 60 pages, each with a wavy line. When you flip the pages, the line seems to undulate. I began by drawing a wavy line onto some card stock and cut it out. I then used that as a sort of template to draw the wavy line onto a page. Then I moved the template 1/16th" to the right to draw it on the next page. Then moved it to the right again for the next page and so on. I then took the whole stack of pages, in order, and used padding compound to glue the left edge to make it like a glued notepad. I made a cover out of tagboard and covered it with some decorative Japanese masking tape and glued the book block inside.

I wish I had video to show you the neat wave action when you flip the pages. I want to make more of these books, but with much more sophisticated drawings inside for more complex movement.

The book measures 3 1/4" x 2 1/2"x 3/8" thick.

Day 7 - January 30th - Red Hots

I want to start by saying Happy 95th Birthday to my Mom, Imogene Meyer. I love you, Mom!

Today's book is actually two books, a tiny pair of blank journals made into earrings. These are actual books. Each earring book has 20 pages (40 counting both sides) of artist paper -- Arches Text Wove -- folded into two signatures, which are then long-stitch bound onto the red leather covers. They're stitched with waxed linen thread, and the tie closure is also linen thread. Attahced to antiqued copper hand-made earwires, they hang very nicely.

These are great fun. I love the way they came out and like how they look on. I'll definitely be making more of these book earrings for my etsy shop.

The pic below shows how nicely these hang when worn.  I may have to wear these out somewhere this week!

Day 6, January 29th - Wired on Jazz

Today's book is really more of a prototype. The craft is pretty sloppy, but I just wanted to see if the idea would work, and I think it does. It will be fun to make this again at some point down the road but taking more time and care and using better material.

The germ of this idea came today when I was in the kitchen and looked over to see a package of cupcake papers on the counter. Of course, my first thought was... "What could I do with those?" I started playing around with them, folded some, flattened some out. The flattened ones had waves from the rippled edges. Hmmm. Water, the sea, sand dunes? No, too mundane. But definitely a sense of movement. Like music. Like ripples of music. Like a John Coltrane riff.

I remembered I had a whole collection of quotations about Jazz. So without thinking too much about how it was going to come out, I picked up a black marking pen and starting writing the quotations onto the flattened papers, writing them in spirals around the edge. The spirals suggested a spiral binding of some sort. But they were round. How could that work?

Put the spiral wire up the middle. Bend and wind part of the wire into a base, then into a top. Thread the papers on and let them flutter, so every time the thing is moved--or hit by a breeze or even touched--the leaves of jazz will flutter... like music.

And so, here is "Wired on Jazz." I'm quite happy with this idea. Can't wait to take it further.

The whole thing stands about 8" high from the coiled wire base to the top of the silver "fan." The section of 14 "pages" is about 4 1/2" high.

Here, we are looking directly down onto the top page. Perhaps you can read the first quotation. "Forgive me if I don't have the words. Maybe I can sing it and you'll understand." -- Ella Fitzgerald

You can read each of the quotations by lifting the pages above each one and turning the entire book.

Day 5, January 28th - A Leather Journal

This is a more sophisticated book, but I have to admit I didn't completely make this book today. I actually began it months ago, while spending time in my sister's studio in Oregon. But I never finished it. So today, I picked it up again and stitched the binding. So... I finished it today and that means it counts.

This is a blank journal. The cover is a lovely cordovan colored leather, medium weight, very smooth and polished. The binding is done in the longstitch, using waxed linen thread to stitch the pages directly to the leather spine. I've added three foiled glass beads  as an accent on the stitching and added a tassel at the top. The pages are hand-torn from Arches Text Wove paper, a lovely velvet finish art paper. The end papers are a crinkled two-tone hand-made paper, purple on the outside and green on the inside. The book measures 5 1/4" x 7" x 1".

I like this book. It feels good in the hand. It would be a pleasure to write in.