Past explorations......

Here are a couple of pics of stuff I have done in my craft life BT (that's Before Temari).

This first image is of some books and miniature-book bookmarks I made after completing a bookbinding course a few years back. It was great, and being an avid reader, creating books was awesome. I couldn't believe I actually made a book. OK, so there was nothing written on the pages, but I made a book nonetheless. Bookbinding is one of those lost crafts that combines precisions, technical know-how, and creativity, and if you ever get the chance, I'd recommend that you have a go!

The second image is of an ex-libris plate that I designed. Being that I have an ongoing fantasy of one day owning a huge library with sliding timber ladders, spiral staircases, floor to ceiling shelving, and a dozen cats curled up on stacks of books and big leather armchairs, I got sidetracked into looking at ex-libris plates. These are also known as bookplates, as they are glued into the front of books to identify the owner of the book. You may remember them being stuck into school books when you were a child. Books used to have quite a limited availability and be quite valuable, and identifying who owned a book was important, especially if they were loaned to other people.

Anyhow, I decided to create my own design, one that represented me. Then I discovered that I couldn't glue them into books, as it borders on vandalism to me (I cant dog-ear pages or write in books - even in pencil -either). So...I have an ex-libris plate that serves no practical purpose :) Oh well. So be it. I'm just happy the design turned out nicely.