Deerie me, who's this?

I volunteer at the county cat shelter (ASAP), where we care for needy animals of the feline persuasion (commercial: Please consider adopting an adult cat! They get overlooked when kittens are available).

The other day, though, a rescue worker came through to show us her new foster critter-- who is definitely not a cat! But oooh, so cute- about 2 days old in this photo.


This lucky little guy will go to an open range shelter in the back country to grow big and strong; after deer hunting season is over he/she will be ready for release. Go, deerie! Have a great life!

Books 5 & 6 Make a Pair

Someday, when my baby grandchildren are old enough to enjoy books, they will each have a miniature book made by Grandma. These two are bound in the traditional manner by being sewn, backed, and cased in as are bigger casebound books. They are covered in origami paper; the flyleaves are marbled in the European tradition. How appropriate for these precious babies: they are of both Japanese and European ancestry.

These books have no text yet. Grandma is still considering whether to write the stories herself, or write stories the children tell her as they grow up!

The Fourth Book

And here we have yet another book- a structure invented by Peter Thomas called a scrolling book. He says he got the idea from the process of scrolling to read all the words on a single computer screen. A member of my Adult Ed bookbinding class gave me the nice cover paper; the flowers are slightly embossed.



For the content of this book I took a long strip of thin paper and printed some of the Kate Greenaway "mignionettes" (child figures) on it, leaving space between them to add text. I have not written the story yet that will go with them. The scroll should have more closely fit its container. As it is now, the scroll does not hold itself back from unrolling. Still, it's an interesting form and I am pleased with the little images and the way they fit the format.

Book the Third

Book three is another accordian book. Since accordian books want to spring open, this one, too, has a band closure. It will be imprinted with the book title, as will the book itself.



The working title is "Florecita mi Bonita," in honor of Miss Flora, my elderly purring teddybear. This time, the accordians are nested. Black "Paper doll" cats leap across the pages.



I know approximately what the text will be, but I have not yet added it to this little book.

Second Book

Book two is "Ocean." It is an accordian book whose covers I have not yet foil stamped. The wavy band holding it closed is cut from book cloth. Only one end of the accordian is anchored; the loose end has a panel to pull out the text.





Pulled out text is two-sided. The first is marbled paper whose edges reminded me of waves breaking; the torn bottom edge represents the meeting of ocean and sand. The second side is my brief handwritten poem about the colors I see in the ocean near home.

Bookaholic

Yep. It's true. There is nothing like a book for me. Technophile that I may be, I can't snuggle up with a kindle and be happy. But give me a cat (or two) and a good book, and I'm a champion napper, err.... reader!

So now you know why this little bookshelf is beginning to fill.

I made all of these miniature books in one weekend- a workshop at the International Printing Museum (Carson, CA) with Peter Thomas of Santa Cruz. Despite my binding & repair of full size books, I took the class with an eye to having some fun, and fun it was indeed. I'll have to do subsequent posts to show them all off. The shorthand version of the weekend was that Peter, who is internationally known as a book artist, papermaker, and binder, is also a teacher extraordinaire. He leads workshops with humor, serious discussions about the future of the book and print, tales of his learning curve, and ukelele serenades. Each of us in the workshop had no trouble keeping up, from the beginner sitting next to me to the experienced printer/binder on my other side. The pacing was great and our output of learning samples impressive.




This one is the travel journal, designed to fit into a shirt pocket as a small souvenir collector- pockets on each page of it, with room to write notes. I think two views of it are enough for the first post. I hope to have time tomorrow to add the other books.

Travel journal open:



I wonder what delights will fill this when I've actually travelled with it!