We started the new year in the Netherlands and also had a wonderful (but much too short) afternoon in Amsterdam. On Reestraat I found a lovely little stationary shop called Cortina Paper with a nice selection of fine papers ideal for bookbinding – mostly italian Carta Varese and my favorite german “Buntpapiere” from Bindewerk.

Cortina Paper
Reestraat 22
1016 DN Amsterdam
Netherlands
On the Map

www.cortinapapier.nl

I made a very simple A4 journal as a birthday present for one of my best friends from college a while back, using black booklinen for the spine and natural brown kraftpaper for the covers.

I called it “book for boys” because I restrained (?) from using any of my patterned papers. Today I finished a second almost identical kraftpaper journal. I think I might add it to the shop tomorrow . It’s in the shop.

Liesan was wondering where to find grey elastics, I got it here.

In terms of crafting I’ve been rather lazy these last months. But I finally managed to finish the diy kit and list it in the shop. After loosing quiet some stuff including the print files due to a hard drive crash it took me some time to recreate the instructions.

But now it’s in the shop and I also added quiet a number of additional pattern and color options today:

If you want to see some finished memo pockets made from my diy kits, check out this blogpost on Dwaallicht’s blog (Thanx Liesan!) or these photos by Sandrine (Thanx so much dear!).

The kit will let you make a small memo pocket with 5 compartments measuring approx. 5.6″ by 4.0″ (14.2 x 10.3 cm). Besides an illustrated step-by-step instruction each kit includes:
- Decorative paper for the cover
- Matching Cardstock sheets for the pockets
- Cardboard covers
- Bookbinding glue
- Glueing template
- Matching ribbon

In addition all you’ll need is a cutter, a cutting mat and a paint brush. You can find the diy kit here in my etsy shop – I will hopefully also soon finish the german instructions and reactivate my little Dawanda shop.

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon the term and concept of Muji at the MoMA Online Store.

“The name “MUJI” is derived from the Japanese phrase “Mujirushi Ryohin,” meaning “No Brand Goods.” Over the last 20 years, they have developed a worldwide following with a guiding philosophy that emphasizes innovative and simple materials, processes, and packaging. The resulting products are streamlined, environmentally friendly, and beautiful in their simplicity.”

These beautiful desk and stationery products inspired me to make a “muji style memo pocket” – similar to the airmail memo pocket – using envelopes from brown recycling paper and leaving the cardboard uncovered.

I recently discovered this beautiful upcycled envelope book over at tulibri’s blog. This and the envelope accordion howto I posted a while back ago brought me to the idea of making a memo pocket book out of envelopes. Instead of upcycling (I’ll try that some other time), I chose to use these cute airmail envelopes I brought back from thailand.

I made 5 pockets by glueing the envelopes shut and then cutting them open on the side. Then I used two enevelopes that I cut completely open to use for the covers. They’re not quite as durable as the memo pockets I usually do, but I think they’re kind of cute and lots of fun to make – so I might make some more to sell at my etsy shop.

I’ll be off to Thailand tomorrow for 3 weeks (!!!) so I decided to make myself a travel journal. The last time I was in thailand about 5 years ago I started to write a travel journal but I was just too lazy to keep going. Now I really regret it, because I can’t remember all the places we stayed at. So this time I want to make sure, I’ll document all the great places we see and things we do (I’m definitely gonna take a thai cooking class this time!!).

I used all kinds of different papers – mostly in oranges and pinks to match the cover.

I printed several pages to use as a daily journal.

And in the back I added 3 memo pockets to keep papers and cards. I did a little experiment by cutting them which turned out pretty nice.

You can find some more pics in my flickr set at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kasaa/sets/72157604398289016/

So bye for now and check back in May – I’m sure there’ll be lots of beautiful paper stuff and pics from the trip to post.

I discovered this great inspiring japanese book on bookbinding a while on etsy. It sold out before I could get a copy but luckily alittlegoodness recently found a copy for me. The instructions are in japenese, but there are lots of detailed drawings and the featured books are just amazing.

ISBN 978-4-579-20970-5

… and I can’t wait to use them.

I started using book cloth for my memo pockets and I’m really happy with the results. I did one set of memo pockets covered completely in book cloth and for the inside I used some really nice gift wrap:

After that I tried several combinations – even though I was in doubt wether they’d look good – and I’m completely overwhelmed by the results:

A couple of years ago I got a moleskine memo pockets and I just love it to organize all the little notes and papers, stamps and business cards that usually lie around on my desk. As I wrote in my first post, I always collected beautiful blank books, which I never used because I wanted to keep it for some special occassion or purpose. So in difference to that, I love the memo pockets because I could start using it right away and I could take everything out anytime and put other things inside as often as I want.

So a few months ago I started to make my own memo pockets and I bound them in all my favorite patterned papers and fabrics. I just added the first series to my etsy shop a couple of days ago.

http://kasaa.etsy.com