I think I've shown my love for bookbinding enough so far, right? Being a self taught binder, I gave in and took a book binding class my last semester of college. It was the best decision I've made in a while.
I learned quite a number of different binding methods and the right way of binding. My self taught binding was a little rough and I fudged things to make them things work, in which they did some of the time. But those fudged ways can only get me so far.

We were taught Japanese stab bindings.

Plus paperback sort of bindings. I love the envelope one.

And hardcovers as well. These are a bit more tricky but I LOVE the end results. The middle one is my favorite.

For our final project we had to create a book (obviously) and fill it with content that is personal to us. I had taken a book illustration class the same year; my friend and I wrote the story together and I created the illustrations for the main project. I decided to carry that into book binding and take my drawings and turn the book into a coloring book.
I had brought my drawings into Photoshop to trace over and thicken up the lines, and then figured out how to print the pages. Was a little tough to get that part down, but I eventually figured out how to print them.
Yea it may be a little unconventional to make a hardcover coloring book, but I think it's fun.

I have a few projects in mind in which I will be using this newly learned knowledge of book binding. I really can't wait to get them rolling!

I realized I posted earlier this month about a photo album I made last year, but I wanted to share this new book I made. It's very different from the other photo album.
I learned how to make this book in the bookbinding class I'm taking this semester. We had a midterm assignment to make a book and fill it with content. When it was assigned, I immediately thought to fill it up with photos that I planned on taking during my Portland trip. I bought disposable cameras and got them developed.

I didn't want to make the book too large so I settled on 10 spreads/20 pages. I planned on inserting 20 photos, so I measured the pages to fit a little larger than standard printed photo proportion. After measuring and scoring the pages, I measured out the cover, which this book was made to wrap around a few times. I couldn't find a decorative piece of paper long enough, so I used my washi tape to connect the piece. This sort of binding has the pages sewn to the cover. So I used clip to keep the pages together while sewing.
It's a super easy book to make.

I ended up buying more washi tape while I was in Portland, so I picked twenty good photos from the batch I got developed, and taped in two opposing corners.

When I got back home, I sliced the pages behind the corners not taped and slipped in the loose corners to fully constrain them and to get the feel of a photo album.

Besides the two disposable cameras I got developed, I have 3 more disposables, 2 110 film rolls, and a half filled disposable camera and 110 roll. I brought my Lomo Diana Mini with me but had such problems getting the wheel to advance the film, so I gave up and bought disposable cameras.
My plan within the next few weeks is to get everything developed and make more photo albums like this. I really love how this book came out!

This project started last semester when my professor told us that we needed to put together a physical portfolio. Knowing me and my cheap crafty ways, I started planning on how I could possible construct it.

I had the whole semester to plan it as it was due the second to last week of classes.
From the self taught knowledge of bookbinding, I gathered my usual materials consisting of cardboard, fabric, glue, thread and needle, yarn, and a few other fun things here and there.

I first went shopping for clear portfolio pages in which I measured my cardboard covers according to that. I glued fabric around it, put together the spine. After that I glued down pieces of fabric to cover the insides, as well as adding pockets for business-y things. I also thought a fun touch was adding a snap to have the portfolio close nicely.
I honestly had difficulty figuring out how to add the pages, but figured out a way that would work to keep the option open to add or subtract pages.

The end result was successful as I found a way to make it all work.
When Christmas rolled around, my mom wanted me to put together a photo album for my grandma. I thought it'd be a nice gift to put one together for her and fill it with photos. Of course, first we went shopping for photo album pages so we can judge how big to make it.

I found some scrap cardboard, which I had used for a backing of one of my illustration projects back in first semester. That project was garbage so I had no problem taking it apart. I took the cardboard off and peeled whatever green construction paper I could get off. I glued fabric around it and found an old binder that I took apart to use the rings.

After everything was glued and dried, I made little flap for a snap (rhymes!). I then used fabric to cover up the inside to make it look clean. I followed some same methods as the portfolio, and tried different methods to modify what didn't work. Overall, this came out good! A little flimsy because of the cardboard used. But all good!

My last semester ever I finally got around to taking a bookbinding class. I love what I'm learning and I can't wait to make things on more of a professional level now that I'm learning the proper methods with proper tools!

As I'm trying to get back into daily postings, I wanted to post some things I've been working on/interested in during the weeks I was absent from the internet.

First of all, have any of you signed up for the new Myspace? I was lucky enough to get an invite from one of my friends. The revamped social networking site is still in beta testing phase, so to be able to sign up you have to have an invite sent to you. (I have four invites left if anyone is interested.)
It's hard to say what the future will bring for the new Myspace. It definitely has gone back to its original roots - a world that mainly focuses on music, photography, film, and art. They have a huge music library, and they make it easy to listen, make playlists, and 'connect' to all things music and the other people. People have been saying that they're waiting for a new social networking site to come along because they're getting tired of Facebook and how much it has changed. Who knows if Myspace will satisfy their needs, only time will tell. But for now, I'm enjoying it, and so are many others.

Finals week was horrible this semester; it was probably a bad idea to sign up for Myspace in the midst of it all, but I needed a nice distraction. Besides, I got all my work done. Isn't that what matters?

The weekend I signed up for it, I was in the middle of this huge final project for my character development class. I was working with a partner, so the pressure not to let her down was overwhelming. We had to pick a story or song from this list our professor gave us. We chose A Boy Named Sue by Shel Silverstein/Johnny Cash. We really revamped the story, and made our own books with all of our work inside. This was the first book I made using this book binding method.

For my Illustrator computer class, we had to create a brochure with four panels. I created images of pretty well known 80's new wave musicians with fun hair, that is.
I focused on Dale Bozzio of Missing Persons, David Bowie, Robert Smith of The Cure, and Cyndi Lauper.

I tend to use only the pen tool for Illustrator projects, but I wanted to try something different. For this project, I mainly used the brush tool to get cool effects for their hair.

I'm kicking myself for not saving these files anywhere else outside my USB flash drive. It seems to be corrupted and it makes me so sad to lose all of my work. If I ever end up fixing the problem, I'll post up my final images instead of photographs of them. Boo.

I've also rediscovered a song that is the ultimate middle school throwback song for me. I was so obsessed with this song by Blindside when it came out.

I have been so into book binding lately, I'm obsessed. I love looking up Youtube tutorials and picking up new methods; I recently came across this book press DIY tutorial that really opened my eyes as to how easy some methods are.

My brother asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I asked him to make me a book press. It's super cheap and easy, and I think was a wonderful gift.

I tested it out and it works fantastic.

I don't have photos of the process, but I will share the video that gave me the idea in the first place.
Enjoy!

Sea Lemon Youtube channel is amazing, I can't stop watching all the videos!

Hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season!
It's been a crazy month! Between finals, the semester ending, the world not ending, holidays, and the stomach virus, I've found it difficult to find time for a blog post. Now that the craziness has subsided, I should be getting back into regular postings.

This year I participated in two secret Santas with two different groups of friends.
The first exchange was with my classmates. The friend I had likes to take actual photos with film, so I bought her two small photo albums from Michaels and painted the print on top with some stencils I made.

I also bought her a pack of gel pens and gave her one of my homemade books for her to draw in.

That day, my secret Santa got me a really nice sketchbook with a magnetized flap.

With my second group of friends, I made a "travel" book for my friend and filled it with photos from a spontaneous trip we took together. I think this is the best book I've made to date and she loved it, so I'm really excited.
I took picture of the 'making of' along the way.

My secret Santa got me delicious food stuff from New Orleans, being that that's where she's from. She's visiting for a little while and participated in our gift exchange.

I can't wait 'till I fully recover from my stomach virus so I can eat that cake and make those French doughnuts!

Another book post!

I started this book with the intention of cutting out boxes and coloring them with primaries. I was super inspired by Mondrian art, if that wasn't apparent already. But I played around with my own twist.

I put in seven signatures, with I think 6 pages in each signatures.
Since finishing it, I've given it to a friend who requested to have it when it was all done. She loves them primary colors!

Been slacking in posts lately. Woops.

I've been working on making this book for a while. Between school and life, the process took a while. All the books I make take forever. My process isn't complicated, just time consuming. Between waiting for dryings and the motivation to keep going, it turns out to be a lengthy process. I decided to discuss my "lengthy" process here.

I start with two pieces of cardboard paper, the same size. I usually gather magazine clippings with a idea of a kind of design I want, and decoupage them on. In this case I painted a base coat of this salmon kind of color. When I started the book, I had purchased the Martha Stewart cupcake punch and wanted to have fun with that. I was afraid the book would look a little boring, so I decoupaged white tissue paper first. Then the cupcakes and strips of paper across the top.

When it was all good to go, I sprayed a layer of Krylon Clear Glaze. When that was dried, I punched out holes for the binding.

The covers were finished, so next was the paper part. I found scraps of white paper, took measurements and figured out how many signatures to make. I had five signatures and six sheets of paper making up each signature. (Thirty sheets of evenly cut paper). I figured out where the holes needed to be made in the creased parts of the signature so it could be binded.

I pulled up the handy dandy video I always refer to when it comes to binding, and followed instructions.

After the binding is done, I always like to take precautionary measures and glue the yarn that makes up the binding. And voila!

(I'd like to make note of the different camera apps I used along the way. So much for being consistent.)

Do any of you save ticket stubs - movie, concert tickets, etc.? I've been saving them for as long as I can remember. I don't have it in me to toss them. I love having the reminder of what/who I saw and when. But if you don't have a way to organize them, the mess can get out of hand. I used to stuff them in a drawer and call it a day.
Not anymore!

One day while browsing through my hand-made books, I thought 'why don't I glue in my movie ticket stubs'? I picked a book at random and glued them in chronological order.

My brother liked what I did with my ticket stubs, so he gave me all of his and I glued them into another book for him. He had WAY too many stubs that I added a bunch more pages for him to fill in. I never realized how many movies he's been to over the years. Beats my number! That's for sure.

For Christmas, which was after I took action by gluing in my stubs, a friend bought me this ticket stub book. She gave it to me at a good time because I was so close to gluing in my concert stubs into another book. There would be no turning back from there! I filled it with my stubs from concerts and plays and such. It's such a nice little book, much neater than my movie stub books!

I love that these are all organized now, and looks nice stored on a bookshelf. No mess no more!
That's Organization 101 with Maria. Empty books and glue does the trick. Go organize your stubs now!

Oh, enjoy the new Silversun Pickups song! Two more months 'til their new album comes out!

Book number two! I named this one 002. Ursa Major Space Station after the Catherine Wheel song.

I'm a fan of how this book came out. The mix between leopard print and plaid was a good choice. It's funkayy.
This book has accordion styled pages.

I've always been decent at having a steady hand for drawing things out with my fabric paint, but I guess I've been getting rusty. I plan on going over it to make it neater.

This book will consist more of model figure drawings I did in school from old semesters. I put in drawings that were pretty decent and then fixed them up at home.
Here is page 01 and 02. The first page is a model we drew in my general illustration class second semester. The second page was a scrap page for tester paint strips, but I thought it looked nice. So I added it to my book.

Here's that Catherine Wheel song I named my book after.

I made a few changes to my book last night. I've officially decided to call them 'art journals'! I don't know why I never thought of that phrase before, but it sure does makes sense.
After that life-changing moment, I went in and numbered my pages. I purposely hidden them in each page, but they're all there.
After THAT, I decided to keep track of each book by numbering them and giving them a little title on the spine. To go with this outer-space/galaxy theme I started, I called this one Under The Milky Way, named after The Church song.
With that all being said, I went back and revisited blog posts and put in the page numbers of each page. I also put the journal name, even though all previous posts are from the same book.

I used white fabric paint to write it out. It doesn't seem to be that readable, so I may go over it with a darker colored fabric paint.

Edit: I went over it with orange fabric paint. It's more clear, but not so clear in the photo.

For the actual page, I finished this one up last night. They're quick drawings of Kat Bjelland and Eva Green. It's the last page of this book, page 12. This is probably one of my favorite pages from this book.

To end this post nicely, here's the video to The Church's Under The Milky Way.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, to those who celebrate. To those who don't, I hope you're enjoying the holiday season. I've been so overwhelmed with the holiday this year, it didn't hit me that in a few days, it'll be a new year! This holiday season really snuck up on us, huh.

I also realized that I haven't posted in a while. My creativity juices have been flowing and I've been taking advantage. Been doing things. I'm proud of myself. I'm involved in a few different projects at the moment, but that's how I do. Page 04, in my 001. Under The Milky Way art journal.

Here is the book I made years ago which features all the pages that I've shown so far. Accordion styled book with 6 pages/12 sides. Made the book from cardboard, and old shirt (LOVE the pattern, which is why I decided to fill this book in first), and recycled paper.