Me Time

After a few weeks of feeling rough, and though not really going through the mill, feeling like I have, I finally did some things that made me feel great. I dug out my pad of instructions for making hand sewn books, I extracted the wonderful Nepalese hand made paper in all different weights and textures that I had brought back from Hay-on-Wye, plonked myself on the floor of my room and got making. I remembered that it is a friend's birthday at the end of the month and rather than sending something impersonal, I thought I would make a book especially for them. Then the mania set in....

After making the pages, I decided I'd have a go, without any idea how, to make a full cover, with spine and cover it in some black, napped fabric I have. Great so far. Then I turned into the glue monster! It was like being five again and getting all sticky in art class at school, quite glorious. Well, the cover is made, and didn't turn out too badly at all, though I've decided it won't go with the softness of the pages I made, but that's fine, as I have some heavy gauge textured paper with flower petals set into it that will make the perfect cover.

The closure for the book will be either a soft leather thong or a length of heavy velvet from my workbox, and I decided to trim the ends with silver and amethyst beads. This required me to get out my silversmithing box, which has been long neglected. Oh, what a joy - rediscovering all the tools, findings and bits and bobs packed away set me off on other creative courses. By the end of the day, the carpet couldn't be seen for all the mess I had made, there was glue in places it shouldn't have been and I felt more content and relaxed than I have for a very long time.

So, I needed the reminder that sometimes I need to be a sticky, creative child. I hope I don't let it go too long before the next session with tools, glue, paper and all sorts of other creative delights. I have had to put them away for the moment as I'm being creative in a different way; working on an eCommerce site for someone who creates and sells hand made candles. It's quite a challenge as it's getting to grips with a new technology platform, and it's rather like discovering the world before maps were thought of. It is wonderfully powerful and I'm confident it will blow her socks off when she sees it, but the user interface was not designed to be easy or intuitive and I'm having to write a user manual! Still, it's coming along nicely and it won't be too long before it will be ready to launch... just another thousand or so images to re-sample... sigh.