*Make sure you read all the way to the bottom, I have stuff to give away*
My friend, Mary, and I make a great team. I make recycled paper, she has a zutter. What is a zutter? It is a nifty little contraption that allows you to bind, well, anything.
When I had started making homemade paper a few months ago, I brought some up to my mother-in-law, Karen, (or Gramma) so I could show off my new skill.
Gramma was impressed (she really is to good to me). I decided to show the paper to her friend, Mary. Mary makes awesome cards, so I thought it might be nice to have her input.
Mary liked it and had some great ideas. We ended up brainstorming for a while about all the possibilities. We decided to make some journals. We would use my paper (which is almost as thick as cardboard), for the covers, then Mary would add the insides and bind it all.
The books pictured above are some of the first ones we made. Actually, I gave the paper to Mary, she did everything else.
We both enjoyed making the first batch of books. Yesterday I made some more paper to give to Mary.
Paper in the process of being made
Paper Drying
My homemade drying setup :)Mary and I are very excited about the colors for this next batch of books :) We hope to offer them in my ArtFire shop soon, but we have some things to figure out first.
Here is where the giveaway comes into play.
We need your help and as a thank you, we are giving away the pink book and the purple heart book.
To enter the giveaway, we need your thoughts on the following two things:
How to finish the books- A few of the ways we are thinking of finishing the insides of the books are:
Blank
Lined
Date Book
Address Book
Birthday/ Anniversary Reminder Book
Photo Albums
What to use for the inside paper- The three shown above have card stock paper in them. We want to make them more recycled, so some other thoughts we had were:
junk mail
used packaging paper
paper printed on one side
Oh, and one other thing we could use your thoughts on. If we offered them fully customizable (you pick the covers, you pick the insides, you pick the finish), would you like that option?
If all goes well, we hope to be ready to sell these by mid April. To meet that deadline, the deadline for this giveaway is going to be April 3rd at midnight. I will let you know on the 4th who the winner is.
So, for your comment to count, I need three things from you.
1. What finishing would you find most useful?
2. What type of material would you like to see inside?
3. Would you be interested in completely customizing your book?
Oh, and make sure I have some way to contact you if you win!
We are totally excited to start making these, and can't wait to hear what you think. Thanks in advance!
what a great idea! I myself would like to custom it to what my needs were but I also think ready made one would work well. I wouldnt want anything to heavy on the inside just regular lined paper would do for me. something easy to write on love ya mom
ReplyDeleteHi T,
ReplyDeleteThese books are totally fab. Great idea. I think it would be really great if you did all the finishings. They are all a wonderful ideas. My favorit one would have to be the photo albums, that way I can put some pics. of your new niece in them:) As far as the inside goes for the albums I think junk mail would be cool maybe a little busy though or the one sided paper. As far as coustomizing I think what ever you come up with is just fine. I really enjoy all the things that you make from your own view but thats just me. Well I love you and great job again on finding another kaotick craft to keep you busy. Mel meljott@yahoo.com or find me on facebook.
Hey T,
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea :) I like all the different finish ideas. Personally an address book and a date book would be my picks, but I think that the books would look great for everything. I love the idea of customizing to exactly what I want too. Being able to pick the cover, inside and finish is a great idea to offer to people. I love all your ideas and crafts that you come up with. Love you!
Oh, I just love the gorgeous texture of your papers! Handmade paper is just fabulous! Here are my answers:
ReplyDelete1. What finishing would you find most useful? - Blank, I hate lines...they limit me too much.
2. What type of material would you like to see inside? - junk mail envelopes would be great or the packaging paper - stuff that is really crinkled and then you mist it with water and iron it and it flattens and is gorgeous with a lot of texture!
3. Would you be interested in completely customizing your book? - Offering this as an option would be nice, but I think it would be good to have some ready to ship in the shop, kwim?
Oh...and consider investing in a Bind It All! I know Mary has hers, but seriously it is SO worth it! I love mine!
Your handmade albums are great! Love the colors you've done so far. I think that for books such as photo albums and scrapbooks, it would be fun to use pages from old vintage books, cookbooks and sheetmusic. You're going to to just put your photo's over top of them anyway and it would add some fun to the pages.
ReplyDeleteCustomizable is great, but I think an offering of already made up one's for impulse buys is great and then customizable for those who want to put a little bit more thought into their purchases.
I think that I'll skip this one because I already won something recently, but I love the idea! I can't wait to see how it turns out :)
ReplyDeleteThe bag arrived safely yesterday, it has the perfect size for me! I'm really happy with it :) I gave it a spot in my room for now because it matches nicely with all the other stuff I have :)
I was really surprised that it arrived so fast, they did a great job :)
Well, I just wanted to let you know that your bag found a good home ;) Thank you again!
The journals look great! I definitely like the idea of being able to order one completely customizable, but my second choice would be one with lined paper. I think a mixture of the various kinds of recycled paper for inside the journals sounds great too! Very cool! --KG
ReplyDeleteThose are nice! I like the idea of blank pages inside to use as a sketch pad, but also like the idea of a photo album or address book made from the same. I love recycled, but not sure if it would be a big seller if you used printed paper inside? I'd also like to see some customized options or paper covers made with natural items embedded, like leaves or even flowers, twigs stuff like that.
ReplyDeleteJust my opinion. What you have there is quite nice just as it is!
Christi
Hi! What a great idea.
ReplyDeleteI think without lines is best - more freedom in use.
They could have multiple uses, but I would use them as a address book or journal first.
Any recycling is awesome, so the junk mail sounds really cool.
Customized is a great option, but I would also have many already to go & then you can sell them & add that you can customize them also.
Good luck to you in your ventures! You have a lot of talent!
Carole Marcsisak
PS Looking forward to seeing you girls at the stables!
Wow, there have been a lot of great ideas for you. All are good ideas. My first choice would be blank or lined journals. I do like the customized option if this works good for you.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't like the junk mail idea if that left me only one side to write on.
Good luck! You have a real talent for this.
Thiss was a lovely blog post
ReplyDelete