A Day In The Studio

I thought it would be fun to walk you step by step through one of my more unusual custom orders. A customer was browsing through my work and was inspired to request a guest book with a decorative polymer clay tile ornament on the cover.

1. I start my tile with a lump of polymer clay, conditioned and ready to run through the pasta machine to get it to a uniform thickness.

2. Here I've gotten the clay rolled out to the thickness I desired and impressed a design into it with a rubber stamp. I have my mica powders out and I have been filling color into the patterns on the tile.

**Very important to note when working with mica powder--less is more! I've learned that lesson the hard way, overloading my brush with powder and making the most garish mess.

3. Cooking in my dedicated polymer clay toaster over. This is an older Black & Decker that has a short in it and randomly cuts itself on when no one's looking. Scary, eh? That's why it's been relegated to polymer clay and isn't used routinely in the kitchen without supervision!

4. Cooling the tile under weight to keep it flat. My Pyrex baking dishes were the nearest thing I could find in a pinch. I put them slightly off center because they're stamped with some wording on the bottom and I was concerned the words might impress upon the tile.

5. The finished tile attached to the front cover of the book.

Backstage Guest Book!

The Fray Summer Tour Guest Book by UberArt

I've got some very exciting news to share! I was commissioned to do a backstage guest book for Grammy-award winning rock band The Fray for their summer tour. So if you get the privilege of going backstage, look for my guest book!

I did window cut outs on the front and back covers,
and embellished the front cover with metal brads.

The back cover with the band members in another cut out window.

I have to give credit to my husband for helping me in the brainstorming phase. I had some ideas sketched out and he was my sounding board, helping me to tweak them.

Here is my sketchbook with all my notes from my brainstorming session.

You've heard the old saying, measure twice and cut once? Well, I think I measured 40 times to be sure my one shot at cutting was going to be right. It was quite a challenge to get the photo for the window centered and glued down before the window was permanently placed in position. Everything had to line up exactly right. Arrgh! The stress!!

At each stage of the process, I was sure I was going to screw something up. Fortunately all my planning and measuring paid off. I got it right on the first shot! Whew!

Here are the finished covers, ready for my stitching holes to be punched, which was another heart-pounding moment! What if I punch the holes in the wrong place? What if my punch acts up and messes up the covers?

I go through this nerve wracking self-talk with every custom order I do, but this one was just a slightly bigger deal than usual. It was such a relief when it was all finished!

Newest Listings

I have been so busy these last few weeks and I am exhausted! On top of that we traveled this weekend, which is exhausting in itself. There is always so much catching up to do, not only around the house with laundry and unpacking, but there are emails to answer, orders to ship, and miscellaneous business to follow up on.

Here is what I've been working on in my studio in between custom orders.

Porcelain and Pearl Guest Book

I wanted to make an elegant yet simple book. The monochromatic whites are classic wedding, but this can also be used for a baby memory book.

Summer Sweet Pea Guest Book

A really fun print I've been dying to use as a cover for one of my books! This feels so summery to me and I can hardly wait for warm weather to move in to STAY! It's nice to have a 70-80 degree day here and there, but when it's almost painful to experience 55 degrees the next day!

Silver and Sage Lotus Guest Book

And a preview of one to be listed soon. This uses the same pattern as the Porcelain and Pearl Book but with a grayish-green background with printed silver lotus blossoms.

I've got one custom order I'm working on right now that is kicking my butt. I'm taking a break from it to blog a bit. It seems like one problem after another, totally unrelated to the customer. First I had trouble finding just the right paper, then my usual vendor was on backorder so I ordered from a new vendor. The order came today and I was very disappointed. The color of the paper was not what I expected. What one vendor calls "Olive Green" is totally different than another vendor's perception of that color. The paper was more like "Olive Brown" instead!
I had trouble with the violet papers I ordered as well. I ordered a range of purples to be sure I got the right shade for my customer. I've never had trouble with color on my monitor vs. reality, so apparently the problem is on the vendor's end. Needless to say, I was not pleased with the violet papers that arrived either. I think one will work, but it's not the perfect match I wanted.

All that to say, lesson learned--order swatches first if you have the luxury of time on your side!

Busy busy!

Wow, have I been swamped this past week with custom orders! My poor blog suffered as a result. I was ashamed to see the last entry was on Valentine's day! Custom orders are a lot of fun and I enjoy the challenge the projects present. Most of the books I have made this week are wedding guest books.

A guest book for a Tiffany blue themed wedding

My most challenging project so far was doing a journal with tracing paper for the text block. When I started to stitch it together I found the spine wanted to collapse on me, so I had to add some sketch paper to the folios to make them more structurally sound.

The tracing paper journal, using handmade Lokta paper for the covers

This was a fun project and a very pleasant customer to work with! I really like it when my customers give me artistic license to come up with something creative within their guidelines of specific colors or sizes. This photo album was a variation on my Winter Damask Guest Book, done in portrait instead of landscape layout.

A guest book for a black and fuchsia themed wedding.

I've got one more custom order I'm working on this week and then I can focus on listing some new journals I've got waiting in the wings! Unless of course I get more custom requests, which is fine, bring 'em on!