New Journals Preview

I've finally got a big stack of journals and photo albums ready for the holiday season. Here's some preview pictures (taken with my VERY messy studio floor in the background).
I'll be re-starting my journal of the week feature here by the end of next week and continuing at least through Christmas.
I 'm especially excited about my new scissors design and the wine journals.

I rarely have sales of any kind but I've also decided to clean out my old inventory and sell stuff off so look out for some great deals on my Etsy site in the next few months.

Papermaking

The main ingredient in all of my paper art: my own handmade paper.

A couple of weeks ago, my sister happened to be visiting when I made a fresh batch of paper. So I conned her into taking some fresh pictures of me making my fresh paper. I'd already made the pulp when she arrived:

I have an

abbreviated run-through on how I make my paper over at my normal website

(including the pulp-making process).

But I'm pretty psyched to share my new photos so why not go through the sheet forming process right here, right now. Here's how I do it:

I pour my pulp into a floating, framed screen (also called a "mold and deckle").

I agitate the fibers and spread them around inside the frame:

Then I pull the screen out of the water and let the water drain through the fibers back into the tub.

I carefully remove the frame from the screen (or the deckle from the mold).

I press a drying felt (also called a couch sheet -- pronounced "cooch sheet") into the wet paper.

I flip the screen-paper-felt stack onto a pile of other newly made sheets of paper (this stack is often called a "post" of paper)

I sponge out as much water as I can through the screen before...

I pull back the loose screen to see my new paper!

The new paper is attached to the drying felt. After pressing the entire stack of new sheets between boards with a clamp and letting any excess water drain for a while, I hang the new sheets to dry outside on my special drying porch (still attached to their drying felts). When they are dry I peal the new sheets off their felts and voila! New paper is made.

New Blog!


Welcome to my new blog!

I'm hoping to post news, updates and little snippets of my work now and then.

Mostly I'll just post what I've been working on.

This week:
I sent out a few orders including the custom order photo album pictured here!

Mostly I've been working on some new sample illustrations based on a story I've written. Hopefully I'll have photos to post before too long.