Sunday

Make book, eat cake


Make a book for a cupcake maker! Must include sketch paper, notepaper, places to collect bits, bobs, ideas, swatches, and stuff.


Within minutes this has become a wild excuse to cover the entire house with see-through paper and doilies.




and cupcakes! Because when I make a book for someone, I have to walk in their way, if only for a few short steps. But not long enough to actually decorate the little fairy cakes before we scoff them. (Even if Grit's sponge cakes are like rock cakes. I have a non-critical audience here.)


Now wipe away the paper doilies and the face full of crumbs, and think about cake preservation... didn't a slice of Queen Victoria's Wedding Cake go on sale recently? Imagine you have found an heirloom cake book, and here's choice two. Sketchpaper, notepaper, and holdings for treasure, wrapped up with vintage leather, bridal lace, pink edged paper, and pressed rose petals. All layered just like a cake. With icing on top.






Thursday

Cast Your Spell on Me



The must-have accessory for all apprentice wizardy types: your very own book of spells and potions.


Chained, as your knowledge, to the book.


Someone had it before you... they left a trace of golden writing


and kindly provided your broomstick key


along with a little bag in which to keep your potions.


But be aware! nothing is quite as it seems ... you may have to stand on your head to open the book


but once you're in, then take pleasure in sourcing your most potent ingredients


and finding ways to store your recipes


and my final recommendation is, do not open the little book, hidden at the back.


I did once, but fortunately I said the magic word, just in time, to stop the whole thing going up in flames.


Made with love (and lots of childlike fun).



Friday

Notebook from the Stables






Take one: Soft brown suede on flexible cover; lovely leather wrap to remind you of the saddle; silver-styled metals for just a bit of flash; paper made from grass; internal pockets and folds to hold those secret aspirations; little ways to trap the snaps of Lovely Horse; and a place to tuck away a bit of dinner, for when you get the munchies.

Take two: More purposeful, industrious appearance - think nineteenth century stable's recording book kept in the tack room - but with folding pages, pockets, and tucks, to play opening and closing the stable doors.







Take three... the book that would like to run about fields by the light of the silvery moon, pretending it's a unicorn. (We all take our inspiration from somewhere.)





Monday

Need a book to match an outfit, embody a place, create an illusion?

But here's a warning. Some books make themselves.

Like this one. When it was done, I couldn't help but notice how it needs to be casually laid on a table in a story written by Edgar Allan Poe.




Then here, cold crumpled blue leather, made like the sea; a sudden sparkling from a diamond-like gem, thrown by the chance turn of life, saying, find me. Blue, bleak, beguiling. Suits Aldeburgh, Suffolk, when a sea mist rises.



And for this one, I didn't set out to stitch a book of feminine erotica...






but I think that's where we ended up. (Book will choose woman.)