HANGING VALENTINE BOOK

Our February workshop will be a perfect opportunity to make a special book for your favorite valentine. Our instructor, Jeanne Levy, says that this versatile hanging book design, originally taught by a fellow bookmaker, is suitable for various holidays and special occasions. We will begin by preparing in advance a 24" x 5" strip of paper and decorating it as desired. Once folded, the strip will be glued to the inner front and back covers. A ribbon, secured to the outside cover, will have a decorated cardboard piece affixed over the ribbon's short tail to enable hanging. The following photographs will give you an idea of how this structure comes together.

Tools and Materials:

• Rulers (6" and 24" or longer)
• Knife and cutting mat
• PVA or glue stick (based on paper weight)
• Acrylic paint, watercolors, Posca pens, fine black pens
• One strip of paper, 24" x 5" high (e.g. Canson Mi-Teintes)
• Two medium-weight book boards, 5-1/4" x 3"
• Two cover papers, 6-1/4" x 4" (for board covers)
• Ribbon for affixing to the exterior cover
• One cardboard piece, 1-1/2" x 1-1/4", decorated or painted as desired. Jeanne covered her piece with paper then stamped and embossed it for a little more bling.

When?   February 14 at 10 a.m. PST

Where?  On your computer, tablet or smartphone via Zoom

RSVP:    To Dolores Guffey by Feb. 9 to receive the password

Workshop Questions? Jeanne Levy femminismo@yahoo.com

Zoom Questions?  Bobbie Hayes

Contact information is in the newsletter

Valentine Kiosk

The kiosk at the Humboldt County Library in Eureka is now showing valentines made by NORBAG members.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NORBAG

Once again it’s time to wish a Happy Birthday to NORBAG.  It’s been 24 years since Shereen LaPlantz and 14 other Humboldt County lovers of the art of making books got together to form our guild. Now coming up on our silver anniversary year in 2020, we are widely known as a respected and innovative organization. I don’t know of any other book art groups that maintain a website, a blog, a rotating display of member’s handmade books at the public library, mail a monthly newsletter, AND hold a monthly book exchange and workshop all for the bargain price of $20 a year for members. Who does that? We do!

NORBAG members also support our community with projects such as making 1000 little books to sell with proceeds going to the Humboldt Literacy Project; making altered book notebooks for authors participating in the Humboldt County Children’s Author Festival; and supporting our member who annually organizes making Valentine cards to give to people receiving Senior Nutrition home-delivered meals, participants at the Senior lunch sites, kidney dialysis patients and people living in our local convalescent and board and care homes. 

Here is the display of the 1000 books during an exhibition of books 

made by NORBAG artists held at Eureka Books in 2010.

This kiosk display in the Humboldt County Library shows a few 

of the altered books made for visiting authors at the 2011 

Children's Author Festival.

Some of the valentines made this year at our February workshop 

under the direction of Lorraine Miller-Wolf.

Our members have been attending and instructing workshops since the beginnings of the yearly Newport Paper and Book Art Festival (NPBAF) and the biennial Focus On Book Art (FOBA), both held in Oregon. Some of our members have also given workshops at Humboldt State University’s OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute), and to other organizations in California, Pennsylvania, Washington, Nebraska, and York, England.

We currently have a membership of about 170 with nearly 70 % living outside of Humboldt County. Many of these members have joined other book art organizations in their new locations while still maintaining membership and participating in NORBAG exchanges.  Because of these “members from afar” NORBAG has served as inspiration for other highly successful book art groups such as the Northwoods Book Art Guild in Fairbanks, Alaska (http://nwbookarts.org/). Recently the Puget Sound Book Artists (PSBA https://pugetsoundbookartists.wildapricot.org/) held their first book exchange which was patterned after NORBAG’s monthly exchanges. The 25 PSBA members who participated had so much fun the group now hopes to make it an annual event.

So, Happy Birthday NORBAG, may we continue to support our community of artists and find joy in the art of making beautiful books.

VALENTINE DISPLAY

On exhibit now in the Humboldt County Library kiosk are colorful Love and Friendship themed cards, books, and structures made by North Redwoods Book Arts Guild members.  Representing things we love includes a beloved dog flag book, a folded book of music, an Ed Hutchins style cut-out book of friends, tacket binding library love, our home planet card, and a sentiment by Thomas Aquinas: “The things that we love tell us what we are.”  

One of the friendship books is titled “Mail Art: Add and Pass”. Created as a blank book, it was mailed to a friend to add words or art to a page then passed on to another friend and then to another friend and so on. When the book was mailed back to the originator it was full of creative images by friends.  

We hope you celebrate Valentine’s Day by doing something that you love! “Indeed, the more we find to love, the more we add to the measure of our hearts.” ―Lloyd Alexander, The Black Cauldron

Celebrate Love and Friendship on Valentine’s Day!

VALENTINE KIOSK DISPLAY

Valentine themed cards and books made by North Redwoods Book Arts Guild members, past and present, are on display in the Humboldt County Library kiosk near the book check-out & returns area.  Art forms include concertina fold, collage, skewer binding, tunnel book, case binding, pop-up cards, Jacob’s Ladder, origami, and an array of card styles. Colorful papers and fabrics were used along with a variety of design techniques, embellishments, poetry, art, printing, and calligraphy to create these “made with love” Valentines.

Thank you Dianne Byington for arranging this display.