In the last weeks, I have felt creative again. A feeling I have not had for a long time. I guess that’s a good sign.
I’m getting old books with a nice or distinct cover. The pages are replaced with new blank pages that I stich together using a bookbinding approach. I add a book mark cords and book headbands.
The books are available in my Etsy shop.
I recently read the Bone comic by Jeff Smith and got really into it. The story and the „bone creatures“ are great, but I also fell in love with the beautiful drawings. I like how black is used as a contrast, night scenes and sometimes black and white are simply reversed. So, I’ve been making some drawings from the Bone comic, using my new toy drawing ink. I like it, because using the ink the black parts really get pitch black.
„Viltvoksende og velsmakende“ is a beautifully illustrated book from Nadia Nörbom about edible plants and other knowledge how plants can be used. The book describes how to recognize the plants, where the plants grow, when to harvest, about taste and smell, how to use and cook them, storage and medical use.
I have wanted to learn more about how to use the thousands of plants around us for a long time. I usually study them and use them in my experiments. But which plants we can eat and how can they help to prevent illnesses. I believe that nature has a lot more to give and a lot of this knowledge has been lost over time. Maybe I can learn a bit more with this book.
I found this old reading book in a thrift shop the other day. I’ve been looking for hard cover books that have a nice cover page. The idea is to add blank pages and make a notebook. First, I rip out the old pages, very carefully. Then I bind blank pages together to small booklets and stich them together. Note to future me: I should make a video tutorial how to do this! And finally the pages are glued into the book. Done.
Soon, notebooks will be available in my etsy shop.
And let me know if you have nice old books!
Some very nice fairy tales to watch:
– The Fall (I’m watching it right now, it looks great)
Any other suggest
Selma the sheep, a classic tale and one of my favourite.
These books about the girl Linnéa are written by two Swedish women. Christina Björk is writing and Lena Anderson drawing. One book is about how Linnéa goes to Paris with her grandfather and discovers the world of Claude Monet. Another book is about Linnéas passion: plants. And she tells you how and what she plants in her garden with the help of an old gardener. I love them.
She is my favourite author. When I was a child I loved to listen to the stories my mum read to me and my sister in the evening. And the stories are so sad that we all ended up crying all together. I still enjoy reading her books from time to time. And I was always fond of the drawings by Ilon Wikland.
This book saved me this summer during my field survey. It’s not only a very helpful field guide with all important plant species from Scandinavia but it’s also a book with lovely drawings. When I look at the book I wish I was a painter making drawings for floras.
What I have been reading lately:
– Sechseläuten, Michael Theurillat, 2009, Ullstein Buchverlag GmbH, Berlin. Crime, that takes place in Zürich.
– Der Teufel von Mailand, Martin Suter, 2006, Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich. Novel, that takes place in the Swiss mountains.
– Der norwetische Gast, Anne Holt, 2008, Piper Verlag GmbH, München. Crime that takes place in the Norwegian mountains. Unfortunately I read it in German and not in Norwegian.