I'm slowly opening up to the idea of using patterned papers again. For the longest time I used strictly solid colours - partly because of my less is more mentality, partly because I felt the patterned papers available were the same everywhere and I'd gotten bored with seeing them all the time. Florence (which was gorgeous!) had an abundance of patterned papers, both printed and marbled, but the majority was honestly too busy or too traditional for my taste. I did bring home a few pretty sheets I'll share with you later!

Of course there's the option of making patterned paper yourself, but it requires time and space, and the lack of the latter has been a huge issue in the past. Maybe I'll reconsider creating my own patterned papers now that there's a bit more room to create a mess in. The endpapers in these mini books, however, were totally mess free to make! I dabbled with vintage endpaper patterns and simply printed these off my laptop once I was happy with the tone and pattern size. This way using patterned endpapers doesn't drive up the price too much like some handmade patterned paper might. Material costs do add up even when the books are tiny, and I wanted to keep these affordable. Printing these endpaper sheets was super simple, but still gave a pretty result!

Once again I used finer lightweight linen for covering such tiny books. These are a bit smaller than the elephant book I made earlier, but all the structural choices are the same. The size of the book I'm making has a lot to do with the materials and structures I choose to use. Tiny books require lots of flexibility because their small pages weigh next to nothing and a stiffer spine might make it hard to keep the spread open. Large books in turn require more support, and also more heavy weight materials to keep things more balanced visually.

For some reason I get a very mid-century feel from this endpaper pattern that is actually a lot older. I ended up using soft grey on cream-coloured paper on these books, but I can see later using this pattern in several other colours, too. I actually have a file full of different patterns I've saved for later use, so who knows what I'll end up making with them.

Now on to an entirely different matter. See that hand? Spotting other pale people on the streets of Florence quickly became a game I played with V. Every now and then we saw someone pretty pale, but in the end I don't think anyone beat me in paleness... I'm pale, even for a Finn, but not in that sweet Snow White kind of way, or even in that cute redhead kind of way, even though I do have loads of freckles. I'm just kind of translucent in a barely-ever-outdoors-and-never-gets-tan-anyway kind of way. It doesn't usually bother me, but at times I did feel like a bit of a freak in Florence when everyone else's skin was glowing in the sunlight and I just spotted yet another vein that shows through my skin. We'll were back in Jyväskylä now, and I'm blending in with the crowd again. And summer appears to be over anyway, so we can all get back to wearing sleeves again...

Lots of work ahead now that the official summer vacation is over - some of it a bit hush hush and to be revealed at a later date, some of it very basic bookbinding work putting together more bullet journals in sold out colours and slightly different sizes. I hope to get those in the shop in a week or two, but my first back to work goal is to get these mini notebooks listed in the shop this weekend.