Monday, June 22, 2015

Rustic Wedding Guest Book: Peony Blossoms on Blue

I have been experimenting with hand painted covers a lot lately. This pretty little book has a hand painted border in charcoal gray to coordinate with the cover paper (designed by Amy Butler).

Rustic Wedding Guest Book on Etsy

Rustic Wedding Guest Book by Emerson Bindery
 I also painted and distressed the inside covers. The brown kraft paper pages are hand torn.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/230853680/small-rustic-wedding-guest-book-peony-on

http://www.etsy.com/listing/230853680/small-rustic-wedding-guest-book-peony-on

http://www.etsy.com/listing/230853680/small-rustic-wedding-guest-book-peony-on
The lace bow is removable if you prefer the cover plain. This book can be purchased in my shop here.


Saturday, June 20, 2015

Mini Guest Books for a Teenage Boy

Recently I was commissioned to make these mini books for use as guest books at a bar mitzvah.
 
The boy was into music so I found this music themed paper in my scrapbook paper stash.
I stamped and embossed the drum set on two of the books to coordinate with the covers.

 

 The inside pages are blank and can be filled with notes, signatures, and drawings.
Maybe even photo booth strips could fit inside, depending upon the size of the strips.


Thursday, June 18, 2015

Hand Painted Photo Album: Starfish on Ocean Blue

I've been working on a different style of book lately to use as a photo album. I wanted something with a flexible spine but case bound and enclosed, unlike my other open spine books.

Beach Wedding Photo Album on Etsy
I've been experimenting with colors on my art journal pages. Some of them look cool enough to be book covers so I thought I'd give it a try and use one of my designs on this album.

The stitching looks a lot like longstitch but is really more like a pamphlet stitch because I don't have the running threads at the top and bottom of the spine.

 The starfish cut outs are textured and feel almost like real starfish!
The covers are textured to give an aged look. This would be a great album to store beach vacation photos in or could be a beach wedding photo album or guest book.

  I ran some of the pages through my computer and printed various designs on them.
 Other pages I hand stamped and made little tags, photo cards,
and envelopes to store treasures or photos in.

This book is a lot more time consuming than my other books but I'm very happy with the outcome!

I can make a book like this in just about any color at your request.
You can purchase this book here.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Giraffe journal for my friend

My good friend Christy and I like to make something special for each other on our birthdays. She made me a collage of paper butterflies in a shadow box one year and made chocolate turtles for me another time.

I've been working on hand painted journals lately and thought I'd make something special for her. Christy's favorite animal is a giraffe and since it has a long neck I needed a tall journal to fit it.




 
This journal was a lot of fun to make. I've found it's good to take a break from the norm and do something different to inspire fresh creativity. Maybe I'll add books like this to my product line in my shop!