Visiting the Boekkunstbeurs and trying my first soaps
Dear reader,
My life has been ridiculously busy lately. Between my dayjob, househunting, and working on a few bookbinding commissions (!), there has been little time for anything else. Fortunately, however, the end is in sight. After more than half a year of searching, I have finally found a new place! I hope to be moving later this month and after that, my life should be a lot calmer. I can't wait.
Visiting the Boekkunstbeurs
Boekkunstbeurs impression
However, even in the midst of all the craziness, I still found the time for some fun: I visited the Boekkunstbeurs (Book Arts Fair) recently! It's an event held annually in the beautiful city of Leiden, and is completely devoted to anything book arts. You can follow workshops or watch demonstrations there, but the main focus is obviously on buying tools and materials for your craft. It doesn't matter whether that craft is papermaking, bookbinding, leatherworking, traditional printing, boxmaking, calligraphy or origami; if it has something to do with books, you'll find something for it at the fair.
I've known about the fair for years, but I was never in the mood to go. This year, however, my bookbinding programme highly encouraged me and my classmates to go, so we could get the tools we were still missing. I still wasn't really feeling it though. When I told my parents about it, they decided to come too, because they wanted to visit the new Rembrandt exhibition in a nearby museum. We thought we'd be done with the fair in two hours at most and then go to the exhibition in the afternoon, but we were wrong. We never even made it to the museum.
We stayed at the fair for almost six hours, and during that whole day, I felt like Harry Potter visiting Diagon Alley for the first time. There was just so much to see: gorgeous paper, nice inks, parchment (!), interesting tools, jaw-dropping boxes, beautifully hand-printed books, inventive bookbinding techniques; I could go on. Almost every single stall was drool-worthy. Add to that the fact that all the sellers were super talkative, and you can imagine that I stayed at most stalls for quite a while. I really enjoyed being there. It also helped that most of my classmates and all my teachers, were there as well, so I knew quite a lot of people, which made the whole event feel like a large gathering of friends. I honestly had the time of my life there.
Some of the wares. This is called Venice paper. I had never heard of it before, but look at those colours!
Leather <3 These are vegetable tanned, which was all done by the men behind the table
Printing demonstration
A visitor practicing his calligraphy skills
My parents also really enjoyed the fair. To my big surprise, my father became very inspired to start doing calligraphy. He's an amateur guitar builder (currently working on his first lute!), so I've always considered him more the crafty than the artsy type. Then again, he definitely has the patience for calligraphy, so I'm very curious to see what he's going to make! My mother, on the other hand, fell in love with boxmaking and has even signed up for a workshop already. That one I'm not surprised about. Especially not after our 20-minute long conversation with boxmaker Cor Aerssens at the fair. That man makes the most wonderful boxes. I heard he's one of the best boxmakers in the world and I'm willing to believe that. I didn't even know it was possible to make slanted pyramid boxes. Seriously, how? Do me a favour and look at his website. Just ignore his English and go straight for the photos, because my god does Cor know what he's doing.
Anyway, enthusiastic rambling aside, I primarily went to get myself some bookbinding tools. Even though I've been bookbinding for a while, I don't actually have all that many 'proper' tools. I'm more the 'use whatever object could potentially do the job and is within reach' type of person. I suppose that approach works, but it also has a few disadvantages which are bothering me more and more, so I wanted to invest in some actual bookbinding tools. I made a shopping list beforehand and managed to find everything on it. The list also helped me not to buy anything I didn't need. Tempting as it was to just get all the paper, leather and parchment, I kept myself in check. There's always next year after all :D
My purchases! Not everything on the photo is new. Some of the tools are only there for scale, but most of it is from the fair.The calligraphed card was a gift. Someone was working on it at a calligraphy stall and randomly decided to give it to me when it was finished. I'm not complaining, because it's beautiful!
I'm really happy with my purchases and can't wait to start using them! I don't think I'll finish this thread in my lifetime, because there's so much of it. Everything else should get me going for quite a while as well. I will need some new tools next year, when we're going to start working with leather and parchment in the bookbinding programme. And if I ever start making really big books, some of these tools will require an upgrade. But for now, this should be more than enough.
Soapmaking update
Two posts ago, I mentioned that I had started experimenting with soapmaking and that I would write an update about it in November, once my first batch of soap had fully cured. Well, it is November and my soap has cured, so it's time for the update.
The soap came out of the mold looking nothing like what I had hoped. It was weirdly pink, with brown spots where the dried lavender sat. My friend cut the loaf and she didn't cut very straight, so the soap bars look like yellow/ pink lumps. They don't smell the way I had hoped either. I scented the batter with lavender, but once the loaf came out of the mold, it didn't smell like that at all anymore. I'm not surprised by that. After all, scents are made of atoms and molecules just like anything else, so if you put those in the middle of a chemical reaction, it makes sense that something in the scent changes. I had just hoped it would smell a little like lavender, but now it's mostly just an undefined sweet smell which isn't that pleasant.
The pink lumps. The white stuff on top of the bottom bar is called soda ash. All the bars had it, but I've already removed it from the others. It isn't harmful, it just doesn't look very nice, so it's better to prevent it. Luckily, you can easily wash it off.
Nevertheless, I still love the soap! There's something fascinating about pouring liquid, dangerous chemicals into a mold and have them turn into a solid soap without your intervention. The end result really is soap. It's nice and creamy, it lathers very well, and it cleans as it should without drying your skin. I've been using the soap for a few weeks already and I'm very happy with it.
Side view. I personally love the uneven edges, because it gives them a strong home-made vibe.
I'm going through my soap bar very quickly though, because it's so soft and creamy. I've also given most of the other bars away at this point, so I have room to make some more. I definitely will after I've moved, because soapmaking is a very addicting craft! This entry was originally posted at https://antuhsa.dreamwidth.org/6419.html. Please comment there using OpenID.