I hope to be blogging more frequently this year about projects, materials, techniques and the interesting people in and around the world of books and paper.

Paper Moon Bookbinding’s new space is fabulous- bright, perfectly sized and comfortable to work in- and I’m thinking about a new line of photo albums for Spring: cloth-bound primarily, although gorgeous wood and cork veneers have been taking up a lot of brain space lately. The other main obsession at the moment is bird- and egg-patterned papers. Maybe it is due to watching the birds outside the snowy window of the bindery…

Very blue bird with a beak extending onto the spine of the book.

This is a small vintage-style archival album with end sheets that have the most beautiful natural history-themed print of eggs from various birds.

Lovely perching bird in earthtones on the cover of a journal.

Ribbon gift/hang tag with a fabulous black bird and nest; this image was used in an antique hat advertisement.

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If you are on Facebook, you may become a “fan” of Paper Moon Bookbinding.  Once connected, you can see additional pictures and galleries of recent projects.  You will also be able to receive updates and occasional special offers, such as free shipping.

I also discovered today that another of my hand-bound journals is currently featured in an Etsy Treasury.  If you are not aware of Etsy, check out the plethora of wonderful hand-made items (from folk art to unique socks..and hand-bound albums and journals as well, of course) that artisans sell through the site.  I could spend all day browsing the various beautiful and interesting creations!

Just the other day I was writing about how I’ve been working with Japanese paper in some of my projects. Serendipitously, I found one of my creations, a handsewn album with Japanese paper, featured in the Uppercase Comma blog.  Check out all of the amazing things that people make.

I’ve been working a lot with decorative Japanese paper recently. Yuzen and chiyogami are those fabulous Japanese silkscreened paper in geometric, natural or large pictorial designs. It is super thin, lightweight and strong but absolutely drenched with amazing pattern and color. Traditional Japanese books made with this paper are flexible, but it can easily be used for Western case binding or other binding “over boards” (meaning with rigid covers on the front and back.) It also works beautifully for box lining and similar projects- just don’t let your glue get too watery. Here are just a few examples: