Spring and Shoes

I couldn't take one more step into this spring without a new pair of Machados. Thank you José!

 

Paste Papers

As you probably noticed by now, I'm very curious and experimental when it comes to my art. I'm also in permanent danger of getting hooked to new and new hobbies. I have flirted before with the idea of making my own papers to use for book covers and endpages and it was always such a fun. Yesterday I tried making paste papers for the first time. I won't get into details as to how they are made, as there as plenty of tutorials on the internet but briefly, making paste paper is an historic method to decorate paper by applying a paste made of starch / glycerin / methyl cellulose mixed with colors. The possibilities are infinite - the use of different backgrounds to work on, any type of colors such as ink, paints, pigments, various paper textures and tools, basically anything that can create a pattern - combs, stamps, fingers, etc.

Here are the results of my trials from yesterday. I chose a more 'vintage' color pallet as I want to use these with my old leather books. An overview of each paper sheet (around 12 x 19 inches) at the right and a close-up view at the left.

Book Clasps: getting better

Encouraged by the results of my first experiments with brass and by your wonderful excitement and feedback, I went on with the idea of making my own book clasps. If to the first ones I had to apply some patina as I found the color of new brass too shiny for my vintage leather books, this time I used some pieces of old brass recovered from a broken coffee grinder. I bought it long time ago at a street fair, unfortunately crushed and incomplete, hoping that one day it will be possible to recover or reuse it. I don't want to sell these clasps as they are among my firsts and I don't have much antique brass left to make many more. Honestly, I also fell in love with the book that's wearing them so I decided I'll keep this one to my (selfish) self. 

 

        

   

Making Book Clasps

Here's my latest addiction: making my own book clasps! I've been searching for them for ages, craved for those in old books, but never actually tried to make my own until now. Obviously, I have absolutely no experience with metal work and it wasn't that easy until I got the first one right. I only had available some basic tools like scissors and rasps for metal so everything is really handmade :) But I was dreaming of trying this since some time now and meanwhile I kept collecting every bit of metal that I thought might come handy one day. So here are my first trials, made of brass.

    

Blog Feature

I had a wonderful surprise yesterday! My shop was featured on Gilliauna's blog - "The Meandering Musings of a Consummate Shopper". She wrote a very nice post about my work, I feel flattered. Thank you so much!