Bookhou

A beautiful package with home goods arrived at my door the other day. All products by talented Arounna of Bookhou, that I just loved. She will soon have a solo show of her sculptures at Rare Device in San Francisco, that I really would like to see!

Belated calendarbook 2009

Only yesterday I sent my last copy of the self-promotional piece for Edizioni Almenodue, the Calendarbook 2009, to clients and friends. I brought them in my suitcase from Italy and every year I'm terribly late to send them out or to even have some for sale. If someone is interested, a few copies are now available in my shop for possible amateurs and collectors.
The calendar is a portfolio made of one single, long piece of paper, where it has been scored and folded, to hold the six pages of the calendar. The illustration is by Julia Binfiled, a British illustrator now living in Milan, Italy. Designed and assembled by Edizioni Almenodue and offset printed in Rome, by Stefania Paradiso, on Fedrigoni Merida Paper. The typesetting is in Elido, designed by Sibylle Hagmann, donated for the edition.
I used the long, beautiful illustration by Julia Binfield, in my wishes for the new year, visible in part on this posting.
This is our number 10th calendarbook, we designed and hand-made in the last ten years. I guess it celebrates some kind of anniversary with our long lasting friendship and collaboration!

Textile beads

I was amazed when I found this incredible textile work by Portugal artist Maria Joao Riberio. I loved pretty much everything from her shop!
Found it via Debi Van Zyl's blog.

Workshop coming at DeCordova Museum

A few spots available for one of my workshop at beautiful DeCordova Museum and Sculptor Park, in Lincoln, Massachusetts. The structure I will teach on February 28th, from 10 to 4 p.m., is a sewing on tapes hard-cover photo album, with exposed spine, as the picture shown below. It was a great workshop last year and I look forward to teach it again! To register for the class contact the Museum School here or call 781-2590505 or 781-2590507. Hope to see you there and here is the workshop description!
Using traditional styles of sewing, create an elegant and contemporary photo album with an exposed spine. High quality paper will be used for the text block and fine Japanese paper and book cloth for the hard cover. To prevent the spine from swelling when photos are added to the pages, spacers will be sewn in between the sheets. A wide selection of book structure samples will be shown at the end of the class, for further discussion and inspiration.All precut materials and paper will be provided.

1000 Hand-made Greetings

Happy to be included in the new released 1000 Hand-made Greetings, published by Rockport Publishers/Quarry Book and curated and designed by Laura McFadden and Deborah Baskin. It is a fabulous collection of different techniques for the hand-made creations, including collage, paint, letterpress, gocco and silkscreen printing, sewing, stitching and more. Several of my old and new designs appear in the full colors pages, but one thing is missing, the credit to Bari Zaki for some collaboration work included in the book! Available here, the book is 315 pages of ideas.

New from Rome

During my last trip to Rome, I was be able to find these lovely Brocaded Numerals to add to my collection of cotton ribbons. Numbers available are from 1 to 10. As my line of Alphabet ribbons, every little roll is 2 meters long and displays 140 numbers! Quantity are limited, but I'm planning to launch them to the wholesale market during the NYC stationery show in May. For now available in my shop, maybe for some last minute Valentine idea!
Thank you to Bloesem for posting about the new ribbons, on her lovely blog!

Stamping on cotton tape

After being away for so long, only a few hours on my blogging world and I already found something amazing. Via this blog, I have found some great ideas for stamping with colors on the cotton tape, with fabric ink. The ribbon is very similar to the one I import from Italy, but this one is probably made in Japan, as all the supplies sold on the Karaku shop. So much to see!

Palazzi romani

I just came back after four long weeks in Italy, hard to be back to so much snow on the East Coast. But I feel now rested and charged, ready for the new year with some new hope and inspirations! Rome was beautiful, with sunny days almost all the time, even in January. They were days of a lot of memories and I even went back to my old building, where I lived on the third floor until I was 13. I photograph it for the first time and I can't resist to post it here below.

Beyond spending most of the time with my family, the main reason of my trips to Italy, I went to visit my beloved collaborator of Edizioni Almenodue in her studio by Ponte Milvio. After a picnic in the court yard and a brief, but effective update about our plans for 2009, I took a few photos of the interiors. Some already posted here from last year trip.
So I will be back with more news soon, while I get adjusted to this cold. winter weather.