Recycled Matchbook Notebooks

Recycled Matchbook Notebooks
Originally uploaded by lessherger.

Matchbook Notebooks. 100% recycled. What more to say?

Recycled Matchbook Notebooks

Recycled Matchbook Notebooks
Originally uploaded by lessherger.

Matchbook Notebooks. 100% recycled. What more to say?

3 days

I got an amazing amount done over the last few days off. 3 days really up s the ability to create and do. Not only is it relaxing but it frees one from the confines of work, in my case my commute.

So I finished several jotters, 7 hedgehog journals, 2 large hedgehog journals, listed an amazing amount of items on ebay and etsy. Packed and shipped quite a few items.

I took hundreds of photos of journals this weekend as well. So I’m ready to list them at a moment’s notice.

Cant’ wait for my next 3 day weekend- next weekend!

Featured Recycled Crafts

There's a website called Craft Gossip and one of the sections on the site is about Recycled Crafts! I'm featured so check it out!
A visit to the site will put it onto your frequent reading links.

Giant Hedgehogs!

I've been playing around with making hedgehogs in larger sizes fo awhile now, I make them in a VERY limited amount because I don't like the size as much as I like the smaller size. After all its all about making what I like. Occasionally I'll make something with other people in mind, but I conciously believe that my work turns out better not only when I believe it but when I like it. If I don't like it, they they don't turn out good at all.

Anyhow here are the 2 giant hedgehogs I made. I'll be listing them soon!

Recycled!

So All of these journals are done and have had their photos taken and will soon be listed on eBay or etsy.

Up on ebay and etsy.

I've spent a considerable amount of time in my studio the last 2 days. It happens to be the coolest place in the house! I've made a few penslips- listed 1 on eBay and 3 on etsy.



I've listed a recycled sign journal on eBay. I'll be listing a few more to etsy later today. I've gone through a frenzy of photography today and I must say that I think it's been good. I probably shot another 75 or so pics of journals. Crazy huh?

Jotters. Like I wrote below I made a load of them the other day, and you can expect fresh ones coming soon. I just got some fresh/ old signs to make new jotters. Some of them have a lot of print on them so they will be very interesting!

I'm melting

I’ve spent the majority of the day working on books and gluing up spines. I finished 3 small notebooks, with cardstock pages and place markers. 2 of the 3 have leather covers, flap and strap and the other is covered in recycled sign vinyl in pink.

I also spent a lot of time sewing up some hedgehogs. I did a bunch of them in card stock and a few with the new graph paper. It took a lot to make a regular thickness hedgehog, I think it was something like 250 pages! (Just checked 256!) That’s just a lot of paper. I’m used to cutting and folding about 160 to 180 pages for a hedgehog. This paper is SO thin. It’s nice though.

Tomorrow I’ll be gluing up the spines and putting them all in covers.

I also got some more recycled covers ready to go, so I folded up a bunch of paper for them. I’m going to print lined paper tomorrow morning and get that ready for Sunday.

Hopefully tomorrow will not be as freaking hot here in the North East as it was today. Luckily for me my studio is in the basement and that stayed pretty cool all day, but it is warmer than it was. This heat is crazy!

PIcs of the new journals tomorrow AM too.

New Jotters and Recycled journals

I made a bunch of new jotters and I've loaded a bunch of them up to ebay and etsy, find links below. I finally found a moderately priced pack of gridded paper, well, I suppose it moderately priced, as compared to other graph paper. 5 lines per inch instead of the overly large 4 lines per inch. I've got 2 packages up on eBay now and 1 on etsy.

Lined Sign Vinyl Journal on etsy.

Unlined Sign Vinyl Journal on etsy.

JOtters 100% recycled set 1.

Jotters 100% recycled set 2:

Jotter Wausau Paper Inside.

Jotter Recycled Graph Paper eBay.

Jotter Recycled Graph Paper 2 notebook Set.

jotters and graph paper

I’ve got a load of pictures to take and upload things to eBay and etsy. I’ve made and have bunched up a load of Jotters. Some are 100% recycled, some have Wausau paper and lastly some have graph paper. I found some graph paper in pads and I’m Cutting the glue off and using the paper.

About the graph paper, It’s not as easy to work with as other papers. It has a very soft feel too it, if that makes sense. A stack of 15 sheets is less stiff than most paper. Because it is soft feeling I’m able to put more pages into a jotter and most likely into a hedgehog as well. So these graph paper jotters have 60 pages. While sewing I also found the paper to be more slick that other paper, meaning that while I was working with it I could feel it shifting around. Knowing if I left it as is it would give me big problems on the sewing machine I used extra clamps to hold it in place while sewing and went very slowly. I only messed up one but even that one is good enough for me to use. So I’ll have some graph paper jotters up on etsy by the end of the day.

Because of the difficulty of making them and the expense of the paper I won’t be making a ton of them, I think anyway. I do like them, so I guess I have to weight out my option. Price wise they are a lot more expensive for me to make than a regular jotter of the same size. I guess we’ll see.

tonight tonight

Tonight I'll be posting more items on eBay. I had hoped to last night but I was totally wiped out after work so i came home and crashed. Work has been like that lately- exhausting.

I have a long weekend coming up so I'll be able to post plenty of things!

Returned

Apparently just the right amount of griping about stolen property inflicts just enough guilt to bring it back, my space pen appeared on my desk overnight. I won't ask questions I'll just be happy I have it back, and I won't ever leave it on my desk when I step away.

Lesson learned!

Ebay and Etsy- regarding Sign Vinyl Notebooks

In regard to notebooks made of sign vinyl for sale, I have a few up on etsy and I usually have them up on eBay as well. You can find them here and here.

(The one I had on eBay just sold, when I get home from the DayJob tonight I'll put another up.)

sign vinyl all you wanted to know and more!!!

Welcome notebookism readers!

I haven’t had much of a chance to write abot my sign vinyl journals, but here I go now, this is a quick post, so feel free to ask more questions and I’ll answer as they come up!

I start with large signs I scavenge from a local store. I asked permission for them and a lady holds them for me. It helps I also work there. However I suspect if you talked to the local manager of a mcdonalds or something you could say your willing to recycle their old signs and they’ll let you have them. Advertising posters are usually good for one season. And they need to get rid of them somewhere and most places have to get rid of the signs and have to pay for removal.

Vinyl takes 100s of years to decompose and when it does break down it becomes some nasty stuff. I won’t go into my recycling philosophy here, but here in the states we need to keep as much out of the landfill as possible.

So I clean the vinyl, they can get nasty. I use spray cleaner and a rag. Wipe it down and scrub anything really nasty off. I then trim off all the folds and rings and cut them down to manageable sizes. Depending on what kind of sign you get, they can be tent sized!

So I then take a template and cut cover sized chunks out of the signs. This dulls the heck out of my rotary cutters. So I switched over to using a box cutter, it works much better.

The inside pockets are also signs, these coated in vinyl. Here again I ask for them, and I get them. I also wipe these down with some spray cleaner and then cut them into smaller manageable pieces. I then cut and fold them to the pocket size and shape and use a sewing machine to stitch them into place.

I use another template to decide the placement of the holes and I then stitch the journals up. I fill them with either Wausau or Xerox paper that onto which I’ve laser printed lines. For stitching I then use hemp or Irish linen.

Sign vinyl is a great material to work with. Sure it’s rough on the tools , but it responds well to a lot of uses, and makes on hell of a tough notebook. The great thing about it is that if you spill coffee on it you can wipe it clean with a damp cloth, just like the car seats of the late 80’s. I have one request, if you (the reader) decide to go ahead and make these please don’t use my exact design especially if your going to make them for sale. Book and journal sales amount to a portion of my income that I’ve come to need, so snagging my design would be bad for me.

my 3 notebooks

my 3 notebooks
Originally uploaded by lessherger.

Same deal as post previous. My 3 daily notebooks, full of ideas and work secrets.

My 3 notebooks

My 3 notebooks
Originally uploaded by lessherger.

I carry these 3 notebooks with me everywhere. The large one is my work notebooks, on the weekends it sits at home. But the other 2 they are always in a man bag of some sort and with me almost everywhere. The top notebooks is a moleskine pockets gridded with a PenSlip in black leather and antiqued brass eyelets. I carries 2 pencils, and it used to carry my Space Pen until someone stole it off my desk.
the second is a hedgehog covered in distressed sheep hide filled with cardstock pages. I use it for ideas and notes about products and possible art. I also sketch out some spine designs in it.

JPG.polaroid

JPG.polaroid
Originally uploaded by chpaquette.

Another great "action shot" of a PenSlip! awesome. It has inspired me to take a few shots of my penslips in "action."

Everything Ends Today

Everything I have up on eBay ends today. I'll be loading a few more items up but not many! I'm keeping my eBay items limited. I'll have the majority of my items up on etsy.

This particular journal:

I would sell as a custom order for around $125. It's at a super low price right now. Get it while the getting is good!

photograph.polaroid

photograph.polaroid
Originally uploaded by chpaquette.

Check out this artistic rendition of my penslip. :) much better photography than I can dream of.

Oldie But goodie

I wanted to post a link to my on of my first posts about penslips from over a year ago.

Enjoy this oldie but goodie.

Final Post of the night- Work Drama

I'm not going to go into too much other than to comment on how drama at work can affect creativity.

There was a major dramatic episode at work, that had me as part of the food chain involved. I had to work around issues that are known in the system and not known in the system, and figure out how to work it, all the whilest dealing with my coworkers.

The general air was somewhat stressful and overall irritating, but not unmanageable. Or so I thought.

I had made plans that tonight, during my precious alone time I would head to the studio and work on some of those books I have on the back burner. (Leather and nice paper, I'll say no more!) Arriving home I found myself exhausted, it was all I could do to drag myself to the kitchen to make a nutritious meal. So here it is just after 8 and I'm ready for bed.

It's pretty amazing to me how all I wanted to do when I came home was unwind, drink a nice cold beer, and go to bed. This after a full and restful sleep last night!

chocolate covered cotton

I'm going to let this one stand on it's own it doesn't need a lot of fluff to tell yo much about it.
The basics:
6x9 inches, 400 100% cotton pages, black irish linen thread, a simple yet elegant and interesting linked long stitch. Chocolate butter soft deer hide, chunky mango paper inside the covers.

It's on eBay here.

recycled on etsy

I listed another recycled journal to etsy, I like the unlined pages of these journals more thanI like them lined. I'm not sure why. I guess I feel constrained by the lines, even though sometimes I like them. That makes no sense at all but I'm sure that there are people out there who completely agree and share my sentiments.

I also decided to keep the recycled journals on sale for the rest of the summer. So this little beauty is only $9.99 plus shipping.

More Peslips on etsy

I loaded up a bunch of penslips on etsy, here, and I dare say these are pretty good looking. I forced myself to use yelets that I normally dont like- pure copper, and I like the combination. This is a small selection of the penslips up on etsy:

Recycled JOtters and NOtebooks on eBay

It's HOT HOT HOT here in Mass, but I'm lucky I've got a cool ocean breeze. Mowing the lawn was a lesson in dehydration! Wow!

I've managed to list 3 sets of recycled journals on eBay. I've got 1 large recycled with lines, 2 small double sets of jotters, one with full recycled pages and one with plain wausau ivory paper. Each set of Jotters has 6 notebooks for only a dollar more than my usual buy it now price. Youcan find the eBay recycled sales here.