I Don't Know If I Like It

I think the stitches are a bit tighter than they should be and I'm not sure the coptic stitch is the best method to make a journal out of such thick board. I am going to try sewing over leather strips that are glued to the board as one method and perhaps add a bookcloth spine and then do some decorative stitching on it for another method. But for what it is worth, here is the little book I've been working on:

It is not perfect, but I learned a lot while making it. I really don't want to give away a book that is not very well put together. I've decided to give the slotted spine journal that I made some time ago as the giveaway instead. Here is what it looks like:

It has a soft vinyl cover and is composed of five signatures with 5 folios each for a total of 100 pages.  It is my favorite size - 5" x 4.5". The paper is a smooth heavyweight paper suitable for sketching and drawing. It may take a light wash. The journal is very lightweight and fits nicely into most handbags.

If you would like a chance to possess this little journal, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post. Be sure to include some way for me to contact you - if you must leave an email in your message, use the word "at" instead of the @ symbol so bots won't recognize it as an email addy. I will draw the winner using a random number generator on Tuesday, March 15 (for the winner this ought to remove the negative connotation of the Ides of March).

In other news, I was the lucky winner of a lovely little journal from Diane at Pocket Blonde. It is a Passport journal with the theme of Oz. It fits very nicely into my handbag and my little girls are going to love it. Each page is lined and has a lovely sketch of Oz characters along the bottom.  Isn't it so cute?

I also received gifts from Stephanie of Rhodia Drive. She recently had a pencil case and pencils giveaway on her blog. I didn't win, but she sent me a couple of pencils and a Rhodia dotPad to try out. I tried to take a picture of them, but the pencils came out yellow every time no matter how I fiddled with the picture in Photoshop, so I am using their pictures instead.

Even their picture doesn't show the gorgeous orange color.

The dotPad is about 3.25" x 4.25" and is cute as can be. The paper takes both pen and pencil without bleed through and my little girls love it. They want to play the classic dot to dot game and I think we will do that. The pencils are very nice - I used them to draw Raena and Dan in yesterdays post. I am in love with the color and the smooth feel of the triangular shape. The pencils hold a sharp point and write very smoothly.

Well, I have an appointment with my tax preparer tomorrow and I still haven't entered the hubster's info into my business software. I don't know if I have ever mentioned the software I use, but I should. I've been using it for a couple of years now and I find it perfect for my needs. It is called TinyBooks and comes with lots of capability. I use it for keeping my month to month expenses and income and to produce my monthly invoices. It also produces wonderful reports with many options, including by date and by account. It comes with lots of typical accounts built in and you can add what you need. If you use an Intel-based Mac and you need this kind of software, you should check it out. Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with this company and I get nothing for this mention. As a matter of fact, they don't know I am writing this.

I am off to eat a bit of cereal with blueberries and kiwi and then will sit here and get the hubster's info put together for tomorrow's appointment. After that I will either do some sketching or try to make a new book with the thick book board by trying sewing over leather straps.

I hope to see you tomorrow - don't forget to sign up for the giveaway!

xoxo