Autumn-inspired notebooks

I've been making loads of tiny hand-bound notebooks lately. I love the process and I love the way they look and feel. There are several notebooks available for sale in my Etsy shop now.

These two are the ones I'm especially happy with. Basically I used the same idea I had for the Banana Pill t-shirts and tote bags a year ago. I collected oak and maple leaves outside my house, painted them with watercolor and transferred the paint straight to the carton covers. The paint didn't transfer as well as it did on fabric, so I had to add some color with a brush.

I'm totally in love with these leaves! I wanna try with other kinds. The only problem is that I don't know the names for all the trees.

Hand-Stitched Book

Once i've learnt how to hand-stitch proper notebooks, i started using my skill on a very nice collaboration project. We made a book with a poet called Platon Lliv (i've made another book with his poems in December) and an artist called Maiorov, who participated in some cover designs for Jozik records. We all were really happy with how this project turned out. The watercolor paintings went perfectly well with poems and i found a really nice carton for the cover, which added to the atmosphere of the book.

Valentine's Day Crafts

The Valentine's Day is over but i would still like to show you what i've made for it. Here are my tiny crochet keychains and below are my watercolor Valentine's cards. I wish there was Valentine's Day every day, so that i could make everything heart-shaped.

Leaves and Watercolor

I had way too many knitting and crocheting projects on my blog recently (and more of them are coming up), so now its time for something different.

The autumn is here and the leaves are falling down. I wanted to save some of them along with the happiness of summer. So i collected different leaves, covered them with watercolor paints and stamped the images on paper.

I haven't figured out any use for those images yet, but i really like how they came out.

Banana Pill / Timothy C Holehouse split packaging

We met Tim in Lithuania when we were on our Europe tour with Banana Pill. We played two shows together.

We really liked what he does and he liked what we do so we decided to do a split tape together. And now it's finally out! We released it together with Tim's label. He took care of the tapes and we did the packaging.

I really like the "reel-to-reel" tapes Tim chose. We wanted to use this kind of tapes for a while now, but we never ended up ordering them. Now we finally have them.

I did the same carton covers for this release as for the previous one. I didn't know what kind of carton to use, so i just went to the stationary store to see what they have. Once i saw this black carton, i was sure i want to use it. It was perfect thickness, and i liked how black and shiny it was.

I came up with this painting some time ago. When it came to deciding what kind of artwork to do for this split, i thought why not use this idea. I did the painting again in "portrait" shape and added the names of our projects to it.

You can check the description and sounds at Jozik records.

Summer gifts

Again i took a long break from blogging and there are two reasons for that: we had guests and four new releases are coming out very soon on Jozik records and they all need artworks.

My mom was one of our guests. And she is the kind of guest that never comes without gifts. Apart from lots of marmalade, this time she brought me new watercolor paints!

It is really embarrassing, but before these i used the ones that are for kids. They are much cheaper and whenever i wanted to buy real ones i could not afford them.

I couldn't wait to try them out. And i am really happy, the colors are so much brighter and it feels much nicer to paint with real paints.

One of the next releases will have a watercolor painting done with these new paints!

Mom also brought a funny sticky craft material that is actually made for kids, but she thought i might want to play with it too :)

I've actually started decorating something with it, but the process is not so easy. The material is made for kids, so it never dries in case kids accidentally swallow it. So i am trying to figure out a way to decorate with it. I'll show you the result when i have it.

New notebooks

Some time ago i have found a nice tutorial through Pinterest on how to make notebooks. I was so happy to have found it, i've never realized it could be that easy. The way i did my notebooks before was easy as well, but this is quite a different technique and the notebooks that come out are a different kind.

So the first thing i did after finding this tutorial, was trying it out on old receipts. So i made a nice shopping list notebook to hang on my fridge.

Then i tried making another notebook with some used printer paper. I used a ladybug stamp with ink of "lavender" color on every page to make the notebook prettier. I've started using the notebook already, it's so nice and small.

I really enjoyed making those. It is a very good and easy technique for the kind of notebooks where you write on the first page and rip it off afterwards to write on the next one.

But today Mitya asked me for a notebook that is small as well, but he wouldn't need to rip the pages off so they need to be holding well. So i decided to use my hole puncher and a ribbon. I've made two notebooks, the greyish one is Mitya's now. I used an image from a used magazine for the cover. For the other one i decided to add the ladybug stamp on every page as well.

When i was putting an extra notebook to the box where i keep my crafty stuff that is not used and not yet given to anyone, i've noticed a couple of notebooks i've made long time ago but haven't shared in my blog for some reason. Here they are. Made of old receipts. The covers are scans of my watercolor madness.

New blog design and circles

I changed the design for my blog a little bit. Basically I just changed the banner, made the blog itself a bit wider and changed some other little things. I also added some more boxes on the right side: there is a little preview of my Flickr photostream as well as a list of links that i called "portfolio" (not sure if it's a good title), and that is where i listed poster and package designs i did. I'll keep adding and there might be some new pages coming up later on.

I decided to change my banner, because i noticed that i've been really into drawing circles recently.

I must say, i am not a very good visual artists when it comes to drawing and painting. But i really enjoy doing it. So all i can draw is some geometric shapes and patterns. But i like experimenting with those shapes, as well as with colors and mediums.

I am usually not very confident about how good they look. I just draw them because i enjoy it. But sometimes nice things come out and then i can use them for posters or record packaging. Or a blog banner :)

Glina "Spiritual safety"

A new cassette is out on Jozik records. 

Glina from St.Petersburg with their 50-minute album called "spiritual safety". Check Jozik for description and preview and here i will tell you about the design.

In the very beginning we had an idea of making an insert out of white paper with a black and white drawing on it, which would be differently painted with watercolor on each cassette separately. And that's what we actually ended up with, but we also got a nice new experience.

I was taking so long time to come up with a drawing. I kept sketching animals, plants and other things and nothing valuable came out. I am not so good in drawing, really. One day i was checking a blog of one artist i'm following and realized, that this guy's drawings are exactly what i'm looking for. He is an artists from Murmansk, his blog is called Maiorov-DIY, check his drawings and other things he makes, i really like them.

So i contacted him and he was happy to participate, and the next day i got this cute cockroach. The day after i got another drawing with many little cockroaches. I was supposed to choose one, but they were so pretty that i decided to use them both, one on the outer part of the insert and another one inside.

After i got the drawings, i placed them and all the needed text in places, printed the inserts on greyish paper, cut them out and then the most fun part began. I painted each of them differently with watercolor, as we planned. As i already mentioned in previous posts, i love painting with watercolor, so i had lots of fun painting these inserts. I still have a bit less than a half to paint.

This was the first time we collaborated with an artist this way. The previous release was completely done by Diana Vishnevskaya, but this time we worked together, and i really liked it this way.

Thanks to Maiorov and Glina for amazingly looking and sounding release!