BothstandingE, a photo by ladyartisan on Flickr.

A couple of books I just completed and shipped off to Japan. The pink one (Butterflies) is a stained glass design converted to leather. The smaller book is based on a medium size version I did with ivy and flowers all over it. I altered it a little, particularly with the colors, adding more colors to the flowers and to the leaves.

More photos can be seen in my Flickr set.

So, I’m sort of late, as usual however, I’m also extremely proud of myself. I actually managed to get some holiday themed items completed and ready to post in my Etsy shop BEFORE the holiday! Woohoo!

The four notepads I got done, packaged and ready to be boxed.

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I love my Activity Feed. Etsy has this feature where you add members whose favorites you like and every time they favorite something, you see it in your activity feed. A lot of sellers on Etsy are kind of annoyed by it but I really love it–it’s an easy way for me to browse through a huge variety of items without having to think a whole lot–what category do I want to look at? what am I interested in seeing now? and so forth.

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My customer wanted an anniversary gift for her husband. A journal with something special on the cover but she wasn’t completely sure what she wanted. She really like the skull book I did ages ago for Michelle/Crow Haven Farm but since the skull is used to represent their guild (Dark Artists Guild), it’s not a design that I would use for non-DAG members. (I really should do a journal with one of the copyright free skulls I’ve got). I did send her some images of copyright free skulls that I had but she also went looking online for something and came up with a sugar skull and a phoenix that she liked. While the sugar skull was cool looking, I thought the phoenix was awesome. However, both of them were taken from a blog done by a tattoo artist. The artist (James Garza) designs some incredible tattoos and does some amazing drawings and paintings. I found myself in the position of asking for licensing for the first time.

The original drawing. I was a little nervous translating this to a tooled design.

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My cup runneth over this November in media world. The Dreaming is finally releasing their new album (FINALLY!) on November 1 (with a bjd on the cover–beyond cool). November 12, Primeval Series 5 starts up on BBC-America, which means they’ll hopefully show up on i-Tunes or Amazon the next day. They left us on a cliffie (yes, I admit I was actually yelling at Connor on my computer screen to not get in the car). And, of course, November 15 is THE day. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations is released and I’m all tingly inside about it. And crossing my fingers that they don’t tell us at the last minute that the PC version is being pushed back to February or something horrific like that.

Of course, the real kicker is that I’m so slammed with custom book orders, I probably won’t have time to enjoy anything but the new music. But it’s a good problem to have so I’m not complaining. Which leads me to a quick recap of some recent custom orders.

Just finished this last night. Customer supplied image, his initials in Old English text, with straps and buckles.

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A long, long time ago, in a gallery far, far away I had one of my Steampunk Temporal Displacement Books included in an exhibit of journals. It didn’t sell. Actually, it’s still in my Etsy shop for sale, although it gets a lot of attention in treasuries and people’s favorites.

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Happy Birthday, America!

It’s a nice problem to have–several commissions waiting to be completed. I’d always known that people like custom options but have found myself getting a lot more customers since I’ve been listing various custom books in my Etsy shop. I’ve done several personalized pamphlets in various sizes, a medium size book with logo on the cover, and have a couple of very large books I’m currently working on.

A refillable notebook, 4" x 4" with a K carved on the cover.

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We’ve got two figs, one pear, two Japanese plums (loquats) and two peach trees. The pear didn’t produce anything this year although it looks quite lovely. The loquats were hit pretty hard by our late freezes this year so all the buds died before they even had a chance. I think we ended up with about 5 good loquats when they ripened. But both of the peaches and figs have lots of baby fruit on them. Now, apparently the figs won’t be ripe until later this summer but some of the peaches on one tree are starting to mature quite nicely. Unfortunately, we’re having a drought this year and watering is limited to very short periods of time so our fruit (and tomatoes) aren’t really getting enough water. I’m hoping that they can hang on with what little we give them until we can get some precipitation around here.

Our loquat tree from 2005 when it produced some fruit.

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One thing I’ve learned doing custom orders is that there are a lot of very thoughtful people out there in the world. I’m frequently touched by the level of thought people put into their gifts. I suppose some of that goes hand-in-hand with the type of custom orders I do–leather working is open to so many possibilities that almost any design idea can be replicated, to a degree. Of course, I’m not skilled enough for certain designs (people and most animal designs are still out of my league, I think) but there are still so many options left.

Dreams Wings journal.

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