The One with Paige's Project - Part II

I posted Part I on April 21st and I'm finally posting Part II. That's because this project has taken a nightmarishly long time to complete! In all my time of bookbinding, I have never had a single book take this long.It all started on April 5th when I went up to Salt Lake City to hang out with my cousin while Chris went to Priesthood session. We ate dinner then we went to the Gateway mall so I could drop my wedding ring off at J.Brooks Jewelers where my aunt conveniently works to get it cleaned and dipped in rhodium (it looks brand spanking new!) We stopped in the most amazing (and overpriced...) store in the world - Anthropologie. I saw these tiles in a clearance basket and wanted to turn them into book covers. Mark Pollei (a BYU bookbinding expert) once said, "As long as it has holes, it can be turned into a book." I asked my dad if it's possible to drill holes through tiles and he said yes I could using special masonry drill bits. So I went to Home Depot and bought some tile/glass bits.

Once at home I went through all of my scrapbooking papers and picked out sheets I thought coordinated with the covers. See the picture above for my selection. Then I went to work drilling holes through the tiles.

Let me tell you - it takes time, patience and man power to drill holes through tile. I'd say it took about 20 minutes to drill a single hole. Not only that, but my cordless drill lasts for 15 minutes. I have two batteries, so I could get one hole done at a time before I was out of juice. And, both of my drill bits were dull after drilling only six holes. I went back to Home Depot, returned the dull drill bits and got new ones that were supposedly better (they're not).

Unfortunately, both of my tiles broke after drilling about three holes through each. There went $8 and lots of my precious time... I asked Sari (the high school teacher I student taught with) if I could stop by her classroom and make my own tiles. She had the genius idea of putting holes in the clay tiles before they was fired. Duh Paige!

But my heart was still set on using the same tiles so one day while Chris was hanging out with his best friend Carlos they went up to the Gateway. I made him go to Anthropologie and buy six more tiles. Extras just in case they broke again. This time, with more patience and care, I successfully drilled four holes through two tiles without breaking them. Yay!

Next, I cut all the pieces of paper to the right size and poked holes in the creases for binding. I didn't have the right colored waxed-linen thread so I looked through my ribbon stash to see if I had a suitable alternative. I found some blue colored string that matched and waxed it myself. I thought I had just enough.

I spent about three hours binding the book, only to realize that I didn't have enough thread. I took the whole thing apart and wallowed.

I asked Chris to go to the BYU Stock Room to buy me the right colored and right amount of waxed linen thread. They weren't open for another week so I had to wait. Once I had the thread I just needed to find the time to bind the book (again). Last weekend was no good, I was reading the Twilight books like a mad woman. I'm still up in the clouds over Bella and Edward. I need to see a therapist because I think I'm obsessed.

Finally I found some time last night while watching Pirates of the Caribbean 3 to bind my book. I didn't use signatures, just single folded sheets, which made the book really fat.What am I going to use it for? I have no idea. It's just pretty to look through.

Also, I did go to Pleasant Grove High a couple weeks ago to make my own tiles. I went back after they were fired to glaze them. Now I'm just waiting to pick them up and I can make another book. I post all my books on paigebooks.googlepages.com

And that's my story of this project.