Book number 47, Magpie book

Current bid for this book stands at £30

This Magpie books features some of my favourite quotes, from a variety of sources including Thich Nhat Hanh, Emily Bronte, Shakespeare and Rumi.

It has a jewel-like front cover in blue, turquoise and gold and the pages are made from plastic sewn together to encase each quote. It measures 14 x 15cm, has 22 pages and is finished with a concertina spine.

This is the front cover.

And here are the details of some of the pages.

Book number 46, Lilac coptic jewels

Current bid for this book stands at £15
Yet another coptic bound book, this time with jewelled beads decorating the front cover. It has a lilac cover and pages. The book measures 8 x 8cm and has 128 pages. It closes with thread wrapped around a bead on edge of the spine.

Here is the cover showing the beautiful jewel-like beads on the front and the fastening.

And here are the inside pages.

Book number 45, Book of charms

Current bid for this book stands at £12
This is another coptic bound book with sewing charms attached to the front cover as part of the spine binding. The covers are bound with thick handmade paper interwoven with threads. It measures 10.5 x 27cm and has 96 pages of cream paper.

This is the front cover showing the detail of the charms and the paper cover.

And here is more detail of the spine and charms.

Book number 44, Shakespearean love quotes

Current bid for this book stands at £25
This is a copy of a small book I made a few years ago. It is a luxurious concertina book with a love quote from Shakespeare on each page and heart-shaped cut-outs. It closes with a magnet and measures14 x 10cm. The front cover is decorated with decoupage, small pieces of decorative paper glued in place and varnished.

This is the front cover which wraps round the book and fastens at the back with a magnet.

This shows the detail of some of the inside pages.

Book number 43, Lotus book

Current bid for this book stands at £10
This is a version of coptic binding with each signature being sewn directly into the outer spine of the cover and decorated with beads. The pages are two shades of lilac. The book measures 14 x 14cm with a magnet closure. It has 144 pages.

This shows the front cover with running stitch embroidery and a lotus flower embroidered onto the closure.

Here is the spine decorated with beads.

This shows the pages and the lotus flower.

Book number 42, Pastel coptic

Current bid for this book stands at £15
This is another coptic bound book made from pastel pages, graph paper and card of varying sizes. The height of the pages measure from 9 to 15.8cm. The whole book measures 16 x 16cm with 192 pages.

This is the front cover, with a delightful die cut autumnal border.

This shows the coptic spine binding

And here are the pages of various sizes.

Book number 41, Green jewel coptic

Current bid for this book stands at £22
It's been a while since I posted any of the books so here are a few all coming together. I'm also aware it's getting close to the end of the year and the deadline I set for myself. At the moment I have 3 to finish and one of them will take a while! We'll see how it goes!
Green jewel coptic is the biggest book I have made, it measures 26x19.5cm and has 40 pages. It is a coptic bound, plain notebook with handmade thick cream paper and a green cover woven with jewelled papers.

This is the front cover, with the jewelled papers woven directly into the bookcloth covering.

This is the spine showing the coptic binding, my current favourite way of making books!

Book number 40, In, out, windows

Current bid for this book stands at £18

Yet another book featuring one of my favourite quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh, in, out, deep, slow, calm, ease, smile, release, present moment, wonderful moment.
This time each page has a central window cut out with one word in each window.
The book measures 11.5 x 13.5cm with the front and back covers decorated in decoupage.

Here is the front cover.

This shows the first of the inside pages.

Book number 39, Coptic marbling

Current bid for this book stands at £10 

This book is from an idea I saw on pinterest and have been wanting to do for a while. It has several signatures (sections of book pages) sewn together across the spine but the edge of each signature is decorated with a piece of marbled paper, so the decoration continues from the front cover, across the spine and onto the back.

It measures 10.5 x 15cm and has 124 pages.

This is the front cover of the book with the stitching clearly visible.

This is the spine with the marbling decorating the edge of each signature.

Book number 38, Framed book

Current bid for this book stands at £10
A small simple book made from handmade denim paper with a colourful frame on the front. Measures 6.5 x 9.5cm with 90 pages.
The paper was bought some years ago from a paper mill in Wookey Hole, Somerset. It is made from old denim and has a lovely soft texture and ragged edges.

Here is the closed book showing the simple frame on the front cover, decorated by wrapped variegated thread.

Here is the open book showing the pale blue pages.

Book number 37, Book decoration

Current bid for this book stands at £8

This small purple and pink book opens out into a folded decoration by sliding the bead down the ribbon to open and then back up to close.

Measuring just 4 x 4cm with a sparkly purple cover and purple ribbon.

Here is the open book decoration with pink and silver pages inside.

Book number 36, In out long

Current bid for this book stands at £18

This book is another small printed version of number 34, (in, out, deep, slow, calm, ease, smile, release, present moment, wonderful moment)

but this time it is vertical rather than horizontal.

Here is the closed book. The cover is cream and gold and a bit darker than the photo indicates. It fastens with a bead and loop and the loop closure is also the means of hanging it. It measures 7 x 2cm. This book also starts with the words 'breathe & go slow'.

 Here is the open book.

Book number 35, In out concertina

Current bid for this book stands at £10

This book has the same words as book number 34 (in, out, deep, slow, calm, ease, smile, release, present moment, wonderful moment) but in a small concertina book, measuring 4 x 4cm. 

Here is the book, closed with a ribbon and bead. The concertina page is made from rice paper and the cover is handmade paper with multi coloured threads in it.

Here is the open book with words printed (each letter printed individually).

Books numbers 29 to 34

A selection of all the recent books to show the sizes and variety.

Book number 34, in out small book

Current bid for this book stands at £10
Another book that has Thich Nhat Hanh's lovely guided meditation words - in, out, deep, slow, calm, ease, smile, release, present moment, only moment.
This small book (4 x 3cm) has one phrase or word printed onto each page followed by a printed heart.
A delightfully tiny book!

Book number 33, circular book

Current bid for this book stands at £15

After a flurry of making books over the last week or so I had an idea to do something slightly different and here it is - a circular book. A group of pages folded together is called a signature, and several signatures sewn together create a book. This time I had lots of signatures and no covers, so I kept sewing them together and joined them to create a circular book.
The book measures 5.5cm high and is 13cm in diameter. There are 384 pages.

Book number 32, a handful of hearts

Current bid for this book stands at £20

A delightfully hefty book that sits neatly in your hand (unless you are a mouse or a giant!).

Measuring 14 x 12cm with 140 pages of beautiful cream handmade paper, this book has plain pages with a heart on every page.

It closes with a magnet over a heart shape.

Book number 31, printed leaf

Current bid for this book stands at £10
This book measures 21.5 x 15.5cm and has plain pages with a printed leaf or heart in each corner.
The front cover is also printed with the same leaves and hearts onto lilac book cloth.

Book number 30, blue leaf

Current bid for this book stands at £5

A small book measuring 6 x 5.5cm with 124 pages of plain white paper.

Just because I enjoy making small books!

Book number 29, bring mind and body home

Current bid for this book stands at £20
A simple brown paper backed book with plain pages and a printed quote from Thich Nhat Hanh at the bottom of each page.

Front cover and first page shown here.

The book measures 21.5 x 15.5cm and has 60 pages.

Plain and simple but full of beautiful words!

Book number 28, We are skylarks

Current bid for this book stands at £25
This book is a simple printed version of my poem, We are skylarks.

We are skylarks

riding the breeze

of the divine breath.

We are skylarks

glistening in the sun

of the divine light.

We are skylarks

singing in space

the song of the divine.

We are skylarks

dancing in the heartspace

of divine beauty.

We are skylarks

larking about

seeing everything as play.

The book size is 11.5 x 12.5cm with 12 pages on handmade (not by me!) cream paper with deckled edges.

front cover

showing some of the pages

Book number 27, a box of gift tags

Current bid for this book stands at £20
At last! Here is number 27, after a long summer break! And it's really pushing the boundaries of what a book is, but I'm working on the fact it is handmade from paper and card.
It is a box of 50 gift tags and it has been a great joy to make and to get back into this project after some weeks away.
The size of the box is 16 x 7 x 4cm and the gift tags range in size from 6.5 x 3cm to 13 x 6cm. Each one is hand-decorated.
Here is the evidence -

Here is a glimpse of all the gift tags.

This is the closed box - 

and the open box!

Book number 26, Snowdrops

Current bid for this book stands at £20
Snowdrops is a simple 10-page book which has my lovely friend Clare's snowdrop print on the front and my poem inside, hand printed.
The book measures 19 x 19cm.

 Here is the front cover of the book with the lovely print.

 This picture shows one of the inside pages and the printing.

Here is the poem - 

Fragile, tender tendrils of green

peeping out of the earth.

Small, almost insignificant 

bulbs of white

barely supported

by slender green stalks.

Yet these tiny white flowers

make a huge announcement,

a proclamation

that Spring is on its way.

The cycle of nature is turning,

the time of hibernation,

of huddling by a warm fire

reluctant to go out

will soon be over.

Delicate drops of white

scattered among decaying leaves

and brown earth,

defying frost and snow

and all the weight of weather

nature has to outpour,

herald a time

of warmth,

longer days,

sunshine.

And make my heart sing.

© 9/2/13

Book number 25, Silence heart

Current bid for this book stands at £10

Book number 25, (yay! half way through) is a heart-shaped book held together with a split pin. It has the poem Silence written on individual pages which appropriately open out into a lovely fan.

 This is the book closed

 and this is what it looks like open.

It measures approximately 8 x 8cm with 17 pages.

The poem is - 

Silence is palpable

at the centre of a heart turned inside out,

knowing its fullness instead of its limits,

its generosity instead of its spite,

its enormity instead of its shrinking.

Silence is a depth-charge

into the ever-present space

that words cannot plumb,

dancing on the outskirts

and knocking at the door,

they cannot express the

vastness and completeness.

Silence is the end of all our longing,

the dropping away of desires and wants,

the dissolving of binary opposites and

the shedding of burdens we have

inadvertently accumulated.

Silence is tangible at the centre

of a heart turned inside out,

embracing infinity instead of being bound

by invisible walls created in our imagining

and forgetfulness that we are bound to one another,

indistinguishable as the wave and the water.

© 28/2/13