I’ve gone off on a tangent from bookbinding into making marbled paper, popular in the mid to late 19th century as endpapers in leatherbound books.
Marbled paper is created by floating diluted watercolor paints onto a marbling “size” – water thickened with carragean (a type of seaweed) extract. The consistency of the marbling size is like [...]

I made a special accordion book about a year ago with a little red octopus in it – I documented the illustration so you could see the layers of ink go on. I love using drawing inks (I used Windsor-newton inks in this one) because you can layer them to make really rich colors – [...]

Handpainted Coyote Journal
Originally uploaded by MissRuth

This neat little book is currently for sale on my Etsy page!

I just unearthed some photos of a really neat project I completed this summer. It’s a giant birthday card in the style of an award portfolio – so it has buckram-covered book board outside and inside large sheets of paper for lots of people to sign. It commemorated a 90th birthday and several of the [...]

Lotus Blossom Journal

Originally uploaded by MissRuth

I’m proud of this latest hardcover book – it showcases some of my favorite papers and book cloth.
The book was completely made by me from start to finish – I hand cut, folded and sewed the pages together, and created the cover out of beautiful hand-stenciled japanese Katezome paper. Originating [...]

Last Weekend, Ryan and I held the opening to our As the Crow Flies show, which features hanging mobiles and cool wall art. Here are a few pictures after the opening when we were hanging around with some of our friends.

This one is called Jupiter’s Crow and it was designed and create by Ryan. It’s [...]

IMGP2518

Originally uploaded by MissRuth

I am having a show at Coffee Obsession in Woods Hole, MA which I’d like to be crow-themed, so I’m already working on pieces for it. Crows are one of my favorite birds – I love watching them rummage through our compost pile and flying off with corn cobs and entire stale [...]

This spring someone gave me a book of leather samples – I’m not sure where they are from, maybe an upholsterer – but they came in two shades of brown and a beautiful bright red. I had four peices total, of really nice quality fairly thick leather, and I was trying to think of what [...]

A full view of the cover

Originally uploaded by MissRuth

My sister Martha finds all kinds of great things when she’s out and about sifting through flea markets, thrift stores and estate sales and she sent me this gorgeous hand-painted paper that decorates the cover.
This journal was sewn in a style of binding called the Coptic stitch, [...]

Gold-leaf fire breathing dragon!
Originally uploaded by MissRuth
Here’s Ian’s finished journal – the cover illustration was hand-drawn by me and then inlaid into the cover (I very carefully cut the faux  leather cover to allow the drawing to sit flush with the cover of the book). The dragon is breathing gold-leaf fire!
You can check out photos [...]