Off to Mönsterås

Though I overslept and didn't wake up untill 12.13 I have now managed to pack all my books, clocks, pendants and boxes, and in a moment I will be off to Mönsterås to set everything up in the shopwindow whish I will be able to use for the next two months or so. I have the camera with me and I promise to take lots of photos whish I will post here later. I'm a bit nervous about all this but I'm sure it will work out great. Wish me luck! :)

How to use a shopwindow?

Hello, everyone!

I hope you are all well. My cold is still holding on but I feel a bit better at least. I posted a new notebook on Etsy today. It has a wave of blue glass beads on the front and I'm very happy with how it turned out. you can find it here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/69672359/blue-wave-notebook

Maybe you wonder over the title of this post and that is what I'm coming to now. My grandfather is very suportive of my bookbinding. Almost too suportive but I could never ask him to stop coming with ideas, build me machines, buy me tools and borrow and read every book on the subject he can get his hands on at the library. You could say he has an ON/OFF-switch, and curently it is ON.

Anyway! He came up with the idea of hiring a shop window and then set out on the task of finding a shopowner who would like to let me use part of his or her window. After talking with what seemed like almost every shopowner in his hometown and comparing prizes he called me back a couple of days ago. Lo and behold! He had found a shopowner who was willing to not hire me the window but to lend me 1/3 of his window for free. And not only that but he thought that one month was a bit too short and suggested two months instead. Still for free. The shopowner explained that he was of the opinion that I didn't need to pay because if people stoped and looked at my things in his window they would atomaticly look at his things too so he would gain from it anyway.

Of course I am very exited about this. The shop in question is not in my hometown but in Mönsterås, the town were my grandparetns live and my mom grew up. It is a small but very cosy little town whish was quite important for the shipping industry back in the days. The window I will use is quite big and in the middle of the main road.

I will be able to have my books in 1/3 of the window. The rest will probably be used by two other people at the same time. I'm not sure what the others do but I think one of them weaves tapestries and the other paint ceramics. My space is about 1 m x 60 cm x 3 m and I will be able to hang things from the ceiling.

When we visited my grandparents last weekend I took a photo of the window so I would now what I have to work with. You can see the picture here on the right. The people outside is my grandfather and my little sister.

So by this I now turn to you, dear friends. Do you have any suggestions for me? Have any of you displayed your crafts in a shopwindow? How did it go? Are there anything I should make sure not to do? Anything you can tell me is great, and if you have nothing to tell me I'm still very happy that you stoped by.

I hope you all have a great day and that spring is on it's way wherever you are. I'm so happy that the sun is shining and nearly all the snow is gone here. :)

True of false?

My family thinks that I should make more extreme books if I want to sell anything. I thought my books were unique enough for people to want to buy them but maybe I should try to carry out some of my crazier ideas and designs.
What do you say? Do you think my family is right? What kind of books would you buy?
Any ideas and sugestions are very welcome.
I hope you have a great day
/Martine

Do we have enough books?

I would really like a libaray like this. :)

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/8ggUCv/features.cgsociety.org/stories/2009_05/2009_05_stockholmlibrary/15-render-FG.jpg

Custom made book for my grandfather

ENGLISH:

My grandfather really likes my bookbinding and has helped me a lot with buying tools and building machines that i need. He is also very active in an association wish work to preserve old buildings and such. (In swedish it is calle a hembygdsföreing but I couldn't find what it would be called in english. A direct translation would be a native district association.) The members of that association get a free subscription to a small magazine wish comes out four times a year. He asked me if I could bind togeather the magazines from 2010 and of course I said yes.

I wanted to have the name of the magazine on the cover in some way but since I don't have the tools or knowledge to print letters on a book I used another technic I have used before but then only for decorative patterns.

I drew the name as it was printed on the magazines and cut it out in a thin pasteboard. I then glued the pasteboard onto the cardboard wish would be the front of the book.

After that I bound the book in the way I usually bind books. I found that I had a red cloth wish had the same colour as the name had on the magazines so I used that on the cover of the book.

I used a folding stick (is that the right word?) to push the cloth down into the letters.

I was a bit scared that the smaller letters would disapear but I was able to make them visible and the whole thing turned out really well.

My grandfather was very happy with it and said that I had made it way to nice and that I didn't have to put so much work on it. He asked me a lot about how much it would cost with or without the letters and if I could make soft covers and so on. He said he would take the book with him to the associantion's next meating and ask if any of the others would like to get the same thing done with their magazines. Hopefully someone will be interested.

SVENSKA:

Min morfar tycker väldigt mycket om mitt bokbinderi och har hjälpt mig mycket med att skaffa verktyg och bygga maskiner som jag behöver. Han är också väldigt aktiv i hembygdsföreningen där han och mormor bor. Medlemmarna i hembygdsföreningen får uppenbarligen en gratis prenumerantion på en hembygdstidning som heter Bygd och Natur och som kommer ut fyra gånger om året. Han frågade mig om jag kunde binda in de tidningar som kom 2010 och självklart svarade jag ja.

Jag ville ha med namnet på tidningen på framsidan på något sätt men eftersom jag varken har rätt verktyg eller kunskap för att trycka bokstäver så bestämde jag mig för att använda en teknik som jag har använt mig av förut men då bara för dekorativa mönser.

Jag ritade av namnet från tidningens framsida och skar ut det i en tunn papp. Sedan limmade jag på pappen på den tjockare papp som skulle bli bokens framsida.

Efter det så band jag in boken som jag brukar göra. Jag upptäckte att jag hade en klot i samma röda färg som användes på tidningens framsida och bestämde mig därför för att använda det att klä in boken i.

Jag använde ett falsben för att trycka ner klotet i bokstäverna. Jag var lite orolig att de mindre bokstäverna var så små så att de inte skulle synas men jag lyckades göra dem synliga också och alltihop såg väldigt snyggt ut.

Min morfar blev väldigt glad över boken och pratade på om hur fin den var och hur jag inte hade behövt lägga ner så mycket arbete på den. Han frågade mig massor om vad priset på boken skulle bli med och utan bokstäver och om jag kunde göra en bok med mjuka pärmar. Han sa att han skulle ta med sig boken till hembygdsföreningens nästa möte och fråga om det var någon annan som var intresserad av att få sina tidningar inbundna också. Förhoppningsvis så finns det någon som är intresserad.