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Things that make you go 'hmm'…
Decisions, decisions…
Posted by on September 2, 2007
This is the second of the embroidered papers I bought from Paper Mojo. It makes such a nice book I am kicking myself that I didn’t buy the other two colours that this paper is made in (turquoise and fuschia pink, since you ask!) I really must find a UK supplier, I’m sure there must be one. The embroidery seems to add another ‘handmade’ dimension to the books. I suppose another answer would be to have a go at stitching some paper myself. Has anyone tried that? The paper would have to be fairly sturdy – these are a sort of light weight ‘Khadi’ paper if you know what that is.
The only danger in that is that I would get sidetracked from making books. There is a precedent for this. All my hobbies have grown out of a previous hobby. I started off doing tapestry and moved onto embroidery as I felt it was more ‘freestyle’. This got me into silk painting and then I decided I wanted to include lettering in my silk paintings and I studied calligraphy for about 5 years, then I decided I wanted to make books to put my calligraphy in, and here we are, another major obsession.
I can’t decide if it’s a good or bad thing. Maybe I should just stick at one thing and get really good at it. Or maybe, I should keep finding out about new things I can do. I am already trying to learn as much as I can about web design – I have taught myself HTML and CSS and am now wading through Javascript and Ajax, as well as making books. The web design can potentially earn me some money and become a career but I am reluctant to treat the book making as just a hobby. If I do start selling them online and it’s a success, I will have to devote a lot of time to something not so ‘moneymaking’ but very time consuming and enjoyable. Or they might not sell and I would have spent a lot of time making a mountain of books to just clutter up the house. (My Christmas present giving would be solved for years to come though!) It’s a dilemma. I think for the moment I should just go with the flow.
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these are exquisite works Diane……you are very talented :)
Thank you, very kind! I love your work too, in fact I am going to enter your competition to win one of your lovely portraits. It’s a great prize!
Diane, I’m sure your books will sell well. What will you do to make them get known? I have found so far that personal connections work best, I sold most to people I know and there friends (also due to my boyfriend telling everyone about my stuff :). It also seems that DaWanda gets more and more known. In three weeks, I’m having my first craft fair – I’m very curious about how it will turn out! So keep on going!
that’s great news Diane…I have just subscribed to your RSS feed :)
Tulibri, I’m building a web site to sell them but I agree that my initial sales will be to the family and friends who want to buy them. There will come a time when that market dries up though so I will have to cultivate others! The area where I live has a thriving artistic community and has lots of galleries and craft shops. Only problem there is, they take commission and that affects the pricing. So much to think about!
Kim, thanks for that. Must check for the next question!
Hi Diane, it’s great to see so many handmade books. What do you do with it? Sell it? You really love stationary. Cheers from Fruity
Fruity, thank you! I don’t sell them at the moment but I hope to in the future.
I love stationery as much as you love fruit! Very informative blog!
I love this one…the best! Great work.
Thank you very much!
So sorry but your comment fell foul of the spam filter and I only just rescued it. I checked out your blog which is great fun to read though it’s a very new one. I look forward to finding what was in the book….!
These are so beautiful it almost tempts me to give up blogging and take up my crafts again – not quite though :-)
That embroidered paper is amazing.
Thank you!
The embroidered paper is gorgeous, I am desperately trying to find a UK supplier (with no success) as I mail ordered it from the US which seems a ridiculously expensive and roundabout way to get it. I can’t even find the Indian manufacturer which is irritating, I always assume that I will always be able to track things down on the internet but this search has me beaten!
Your blog is so full of useful information it must be very time consuming to run. I find keeping this little one going takes up an huge amount of time. Not that I mind though, I’ll just have to get better at time management! What crafts did you do?