Playing around

And stitched together the encaustic book i made in January. 

then I decorated the back of it with Gold ink and khaki oil pastel. 

As if often the case, the back and the front don't match (i can never make them match). And there's part of me that likes the back better then the front, but that's not always true. 

See the front of the book here.

i decorated the box with panels from the book. All that's left is to attach buttons to the box, which will happen next week.

The bits on the outside of the box are so pretty i don't want to cover them up so i plan to display the box on its end and attach the concertina to either part of the box so it is literally an accordion. 

I originally cut the paper as a snake book (leperello) so parts of the book sit wrongly because they are against the grain. Live and learn. 

altered book with rubbings

Commercial book as furniture

I want some of these: they are books when unused, and tables and stools when you need them!

a commercial product, inspired no doubt by all the beautiful books turned into furniture I keep finding.

These Moleskine-Like Books Unfold Into Tables And Stools 

'via Blog this'

beautiful user agreement

so, someone has finally made user agreements readable. beautifully

Here's The Only EULA You'll Ever Want To Read 



'via Blog this'

Book Hive

I want one of these!

Book Hive: New Interactive Book Display in Bristol Central Library

'via Blog this'

Never too many books

For a treat, visit this pinterest page "never too many books".
See beds, chairs, shelves, anything made from old books...

Nine tiny books

Today, inspired by Natalie Cheney's tiniest art gallery i made 9 miniature books.
Each is less than 3cm cubed.

Here they all are.

Because snails were on my mind (see below), I drew tiny snails on this next book, which is made from tiny price tags. Each tag has been covered in dress pattern tissue paper. I added a bead. The book is more like a set of dog tags, but that's a book, right?

I also made two books from sentence maker words. 

My mum taught primary school, and when I helped her move recently she gave me a heap of sentence maker words. They are words on cardboard. Each piece of cardboard had a line across the bottom, to insert it into a sentence holder (like you put your letter on in scrabble). 

If you learnt to read in the 1970s you may recognise what a sentence maker is. if not, it was a way to teach reading. Kids would ask their teacher for the words to create a sentence they wanted to make. The teacher would give them the words they wanted, they'd put them in the sentence holder, and they'd copy them out, and keep their cardboard words in a folder. Each day they would re-use words they already had and ask for new ones, so they built their own sentences from words they "owned". Very cool.

The first book uses three letter words (more or less). It's called Three Letter Words or so.

The sentence maker words were bigger than 3cm, though, so I trimmed them, and made another book out of the trimmings. I added some nice words, mostly adverbs. I called it Adjectival Adverbial (because originally i was going to call it adjectival, then i realised that they were in fact adverbs).

I found a YES in the beads, so I added that in, given that the words in this book are cheerily, happily, fortunately, and other such lovely words.

And this book is from an old ink drawing of mine. it is a double concertina. It has a lino cover that looks like fake wood (left over from when I re-did my kitchen floor!). What i love about the double concertina is that it looks like a bound book when it's closed, but it sits open so beautifully (as you see here). Of course open out it will measure more than 3x3, so it won't fit the criteria for the tiny art gallery (but making art isn't always about meeting constraints!)

There are five tiny books made from the encaustic works i did in january. 

Each page is 3cm x 3cm, and the ink stains and resist make it look like there are hieroglyphs on the pages.
Each one has a bead and ribbon closure. The first one I did has words on it, from a poem by Jacques Prevert La chanson des escargots qui s'en vont a l'enterrement, (in English The song of the snails who got to a funeral). The original encaustic work uses the same words (but they are barely discernible, since they've been encaustic'd and scraped and inked and generally obscured).