Jack Teagle is Cool

I could wax lyrical about the city I lived in during university. I’ve yet to visit a city which I love as much as Bath. I love Bath for many reasons, and one of them is it’s shops. A lovely paper and gift shop called Maythers not only sells Paperblanks, my favourite brand of writing journals, but interesting and beautiful wrapping papers, too, as well as quirky gifts and books.

My paper hoarding from Maythers has been quite excellent in the past. I made these two books from paper I bought there.

 

So when I saw a colourful paper with head shots of characters I knew very well, I had to buy it.

This, my friends, is the masterpiece of Jack Teagle, illustrator. The wrapping paper includes some of the best heroes and villains around: a mish-mash of genres and sources: from Darth Vader to Spiderman. I knew as soon as I saw the paper I wanted to make something from it.

I left Bath and thought about making the book. I could have sworn I bought myself a couple of sheets, but alas, I couldn’t find it anyway. I had to wait until December until I actually obtained two beautiful and fresh sheets.

Along with some lovely purple book cloth from Shepherds, I knew pretty much what design I wanted to do.

Using book cloth on the corners and the spine is called ‘half-cloth binding’ and I think it all works very well.

Apologies for the terrible quality, it was late at night!

I made myself an exercise book and I covered the floral diary I had got from school.

Thanks to this fantastic wrapping paper, I introduced a youngster to the forgotten trade of bookbinding and nabbed myself a incredibly geeky notebook and diary to geek out in.

Jack Teagle is quite a brilliant artist. Thank you, sir.

Now go and check him out!

You should be expecting a postcard from Camp NaNoWriMo some time soon.

Mayther:

3 Milsom St,

 City Centre,

Bath

BA1 1DA

A Little Update

Hello. My name is Lucy. And I am a shame-faced book blogger.

As you can see, my last post was in February, and that is rather poor. It’s not even like I have had anything really interesting going on.

Well, that’s a bit of a lie, I suppose.

I have probably made about three books this year which is a bit of a poor show, considering that one of my resolutions was to do one book-binding project per week. But I have been busy! I promise. And it’s been doing book-related things, as well. Win, win. 

The Story of the Assistant Librarian

Last November I had my first proper job interview ever, for a job that I really, really wanted. I dressed up all nice, brogues and all, and had an interview at one of the Isle of Wight’s Secondary Schools. I had applied to be a Reprographics and Library Assistant.

    

Alas, even with my shiny, shiny brogues I didn’t get the job. But I persevered, applying for an assistant role in the art department at the same school in the New Year.

My interest did me a lot of good as one of the other Library Assistants moved to Art and suddenly the position was free! At the end of February I started my first ever full time job as a Reprographics and Library Assistant. That’s my official job title. It’s on my ID badge.

I love being a librarian. I especially love preparing new books for the shelves and talking to the kid about YA books I shamelessly enjoy. A lot of my time is spent comforting the hard-worked photocopier and printer after stressed and unorganised teachers abuse it, so unfortunately I'm not in the library as often as I would like. But when I am in there, I love it, even the noisy and busy break times, where I haven’t quite found my librarian’s voice yet to tell all the kids to shut up.

So that’s nice: nice as well, because although we don’t get many new books in I still get a sense of what it popular at the moment among an age range I wouldn't mind writing for. A little bit of research, if you will.

 This links nicely onto my next bit of news. I was given a very floral diary for the job and I covered it with the coolest wrapping paper ever. A kid saw it and loved it, asking where I got it. When I told him I made it I think he was quite impressed. He asked me to make him one but I said instead that I would help him to make one.

So one lunchtime he came in. I kept reasonable control of the library by only allowing five people- to sit at each table. It is a library, not a common room, after all! They are obsessed with chess. Anyway, I claimed a table for myself, laying out all the materials. My little bookbinder came in and we covered a couple of exercise books. It was really great to introduce this concept of bookbinding to somebody so young.

So what did we cover these books with, I hear you cry?

I’ll tell you that story tomorrow. 

 And Finally...

In the mean time, here is a book I made to keep all my book – related ramblings in. I love using exercise books, and for university it was especially useful having different notebooks for different classes. It felt like being back at school again!

I have been participating in this year’s April Camp NaNoWriMo. But that’s a story for another time!

 You can find me here.

What book related frenzies have you been up to?