Long Stitch Journals For Sale

I apologize for the crappy pictures. This was my project... long stitch journals to sell at WNYBAC. I lined the leather with a decorative paper, which contrasts the white text paper really beautifully. I made four long stitch journals in two different styles. The flowers are the inside of the brown/purple, and the green is the red/black. They are currently living in a cubbyhole at the WNYBAC gift shop.

Book Fest

Yesterday at WNYBAC was Book Fest. This means the space is open with tables for demonstrations and different neat things. The tables included marbling paper, pop-up accordion books, stab sewn books, making buttons, and open studio in the print studio. There were a lot of people there. I started out drifting, then stayed behind the desk/register and finished packaging my fundraiser "thank you" gifts. Then I spent some time helping at the stab binding station. The books at that table were made from recycled materials (cereal boxes, envelopes, etc) and were drawing a lot of attention. I taught 4 people how to sew their book. It was great.
And when every body left... I got to marble some paper. My sheets came out a little crappy, but it was still neat to learn.

Tube Cities

 This week at WNYBAC, I had to gather materials to be mailed out to donors. There was recently a fund raiser for a ventilation system to be installed in the basement print studio, and $5000 was raised. Depending on the level of donation, individuals receive 3 letterpress cards, a poster, 5 pieces of ephemera, a free workshop, and a free one year membership. I collected all these materials and sorted them into piles (based on donation level). The posters needed to be rolled, so I had to cut down some 4' tubes to fit. After I started stacking them, I realized it looked like I was building little cities, so I took pictures. (Sorry about quality... I used my phone camera).

New Projects

Since I'm out of construction paper and my little folded books have been shipped off, I am starting a new minor project. I am going to make some long stitch journals to sell at WNYBAC. Let's see how it goes.

WNYBAC- with pictures

This week started with the usual, pricing items for the gift shop, filling online orders and a run to the post office. Then I redesigned a sheet to be used for tracking funds raised at special events, and checked the membership list for upcoming renewals. I also helped out down in the print studio. I organized spacers for the letterpress machine and helped move prints from the press to the drying rack.
I also took pictures of WNYBAC, to show the space layout.

 

 Exhibition space - with removable walls from the Albright-Knox.

Work space and register for the gift shop.

  Permanent press collection and minor exhibition space.

Shop.

 Basement print studio, where they make awesome letter press

 posters and cards like this....

Little Altered Books

So, since I have been interning at WNYBAC, I haven't been doing book conservation on a consistent basis. My duties for the last few weeks have consisted of painting walls for the exhibition space, folding letterpress cards for the gift shop, updating the events calendar and adding books to the library's catalog through Library Thing.
In a few weeks, WNYBAC is putting on Bookfest. This will be an all day event with different demonstration tables. It brings a good amount of people to the center, and usually results in new memberships, workshop sign-ups and donations. I am going to be demonstrating a simple structure, sometimes called the origami book or snake book. I will make a sample and post pictures of it.
In an effort to keep my hands busy, I have been making little altered books. Some of them I plan to give away as ornaments for the holidays. Most of them will be donated to an exhibition at the Children's Hospital in Syracuse. I have also been giving them to a friend for her yoga studio.
For the smaller ones with text, I cut old books down to size. The colorful ones were made by cutting construction paper into small squares, and fan adhesive binding them. This is a little peak at the growing pile.