Book Happy

Before I get to my book happiness, I found more numbers that I got at the longest yard sale. I'm not sure what the original purpose of these might be. They are on stiff cardstock, and the number of times the number appears on the card seems to have nothing to do with the number itself. I stuck the cards in the side pocket of my tote bag to keep them from getting bent, and promptly forgot I had them!

And just to wrap up Stampaway a little more, I forgot to mention how great it is every year to see old friends... the Knoxville bunch...Mike and Chris from Coffee Break... the Missouri bunch... and the "local" friends that I never see until I go out of town (how weird is that!?). Pam Sussman was just back from her world travels and is now posting great stuff about her trip (thank goodness, as we readers of her blog know quite enough about steel now, and are ready to move on!) We always stalk each other at the convention so that neither of us miss any great buys!

--- One of the fun things at the Friday Night Preview is seeing the vendors and customers who dress up. The theme this year was "Wear Your Art". I think just about the funniest thing I ever saw was this foursome dressed as daubers, with their inked up sponge heads and t-shirts that read on the back "Da Daubers". I stole this picture from the Marco's blog, so go there to see more about Stampaway, with lots of pictures and also pictures of past years' costumes.

Now to my state of book happiness.... Mike Meador gave me this journal of recycled found paper. Not only is it a cool book, but I think I worked off five pounds just trying to get it out of its cellophane envelope! And I'm sure it's just a coincidence that it has pages in it for mental health evaluation notes. Yes, I'm sure it's just a coincidence...

---And then I have these two new journals. I had a gift certificate from Rag & Bone Bindery. I have always heard how great their blank journals are, so I carefully picked out two fabric designs for the covers and waited to receive my books. Oh, my, they do not disappoint. I don't think the right adjectives exist to describe them. They are very well made, with deckle-edge paper that just begs for all kinds of media, and they just smell good too. I can't describe the smell, something similar to new textbook and/or glue smell and/or fresh fabric. I know, none of that helps at all!!! The design for the darker one is Midnight Garden, and the more whimsical one is Dizzy Birds. Each book is made to order by hand once the fabric cover is picked out. Very yummy.

--- Then there is this little book. I mentioned back in June that I had bought the book "Re-Bound". I got it out again to look at it, and only then did I realize that the book in the cover photo was made from gift cards. I'm a sucker for little books, and I had to make one right away. The instructions are well written, and in no time I had a text block sewn to ribbons. I planned to use a couple of fake Discover cards for the covers (fake cards that came in the mail as a promotion to get me to apply for a Discover card.) I liked them because you can see through them, and I planned my design so that the checkerboard pages on the first and last sections of the book would show through the translucent covers. Well, as usual, I should have taken my time and read through the instructions first. There is another step where you glue cardstock to the inside of the covers, and that would defeat the purpose of using translucent covers. So I put it aside while I think about it. The more I think, the more I'm inclined to skip that step and just go ahead with attaching the ribbons to the cover. I'll post the final book when I'm finished with it.

---These pictures show the text block sewn to the ribbons, and the lower one shows the potential covers not yet attached.