A bunch of Mini Books and Etsy shops

I've been having too much fun making mini books out of candy boxes (as a bonus had to eat some candy too!).

Here's the latest:

All these books and what to do with them???
I decided to list them on Etsy.  Since I'm not working I need to come up with a way to have some $$$ for Christmas.
Also listed a few owl ornaments I made.  Here's a couple of them:

You can check out my ETSY shop HERE.

Also, be sure to check out my friend, Debbie's ETSY shop.  She has lot's of great Christmas decorations and gift ideas.  You can check out her ETSY shop HERE.  Her hand dyed ribbons are especially wonderful!

     



Thanks for taking a look!
Happy Thanksgiving to All!

Bind-It-All Binge

Okay, I admit it - I love most all art supplies.  But tools have a special place in my art supply heart!  And among the tools I currently have the Zutter Bind-It-All is one of my favorite.  You can check out their website by clicking HERE.  I have the older blue Bind-It-All (BIA).  Good thing I got it when it was blue as it is pink now.  I hate to admit I might not ever have got to know how much fun it is as I would probably have never bought a "pink" tool.  I'm just not too fond of pink. Anyway, I did get the blue BIA and I love it.  You can see it in the photo above. 
One of the things I like most is that you don't have to measure much.  For the book and covers you basically need the center of the side you are going to bind.  I use leftover paper from other projects in whatever sizes they happen to be and can go from there.  Once I decide on the book pages, I just make a cover using one of those as a guide and make it slightly larger.  Or, sometimes I have something I want to use as a cover, and go from there and cut pages slightly larger.
Recently I had my BIA and all kinds of paper out to make a Smash style scrapbook for my niece for her 12th birthday.  It is 8 x 10 and turned out great but I forgot to take photos of it so will have to share photos of it another time.
As long as I had all the stuff handy I got out some postcards to use as covers and made a whole bunch of books!  I even refilled a small book I had made awhile back and used up.  Most of my binding is 3/4" silver O-rings as I bought a huge box of them from an office supply store.  Alot (really ALOT) more reasonably 
priced than buying them in 2 or 6 packs.
The green "Nurture Nature" postcards are ones I had made from a collage of mine.  The rest are commercial post cards.  Here's a bunch of photos:

The backs are cardboard or chipboard I covered with paper on both sides.
The Nurture Nature books will be available for sale soon on my Etsy as mini sketch books or journals.  Great as a small journal to have with you, a good travel size!  I'll post a notice here and on Twitter when they are available.
Thanks for taking a look!
Have a CREATIVE week!

My first ever Coptic Stitch Book!

I finished my book for Darcy's Postcard Challenge 2012.
It's the first time I've ever done a Coptic Stitch binding and I really like how it turned out.
The pages are alot thicker at the bottom because of the pockets I added to each page to hold the postcards so to accommodate for that I used pretty thick thread for the stitching of the binding.

The binding is one inch strips of tyvek that I painted a copper color with acrylics.
I got the idea and instructions for making this"Coptic Stitch binding for individual pages" book from watching Barb on UStream.  You can see the recording of how to make the book HERE.  Thanks to Barb for always being such an inspiration!
Below are some pictures of the completed book:

I have my postcard started.  I think for me, the hardest part will be figuring what to write on the back.  This creative writing is pretty far out of the norm for me, but always a good idea to get out of one's own normal, right?

Thanks for taking a look!