Mia Made Books
The holidays mostly snuck up on me, but I happily managed to do a purely whimsical, satisfying thing for my friends.
I ran with the idea I had for creating little books using Googlism.com search results, rubber stamps from the early days of print, some B&W photos, and moleskin notebooks. The shape and tone were sort of inspired by, but not in the spirit of the Edward Gorey books.
The stilted repetition of the search results gave the didactic and/or descriptive feel of childrens’ books. For each person’s name I picked out the best lines from the search results. Using direct quotes (strange syntax left as is) the statements range from curiously accurate, to wildly fantastic. Each book ends on a positive or mushy note.
Blank, natural moleskin notebooks were awesome in that they were about the right size in the hand, though I would have preferred a more square shape for the book. I get writer’s cramp from writing out checks, so the biggest challenge here was my handwriting and attempts to not make mistakes even though I was directly transcribing most of the words. Hopefully that just adds charm. Well, and that’s why I call the recipients my good friends — they care, or maybe they don’t care, as is important.
My favorite part of material-collecting was finding and picking out rubber stamps from a small shop run by Irishman in the East Village: J.C. Casey, voted “Best foulmouthed Irish stamp maker” by The Voice. Stamps seemed like that natural answer for getting the printed feel I wanted, while forgiving me for having little to no illustration skills of my own. This man (body parts shown in photos) makes custom stamps, as well as constructing them from old cuts used in print advertising and catalogs in the early twentieth century. He takes the block print from sheets of rubber, hot glues it to wooden blocks, and either chats or shares a nip while you wait. “Flash flash flash… that’s my favorite one. I have names for all of them. You picked a lot of my favorites.” (imagine his heavy irish brogue)
It turns out that I fancied one artist in particular, whose name has unfortunately been lost. Apparently one company had just one designer, and he was responsible for about 6 of my chosen stamps. So thank you, talented long-lost dead designer, for making spirits bright. We really like your aesthetic!
Please notice (in the large cluttered desk shot) a stamp with a unicorn and stars on it. This stamp and a purple ink pad was given to me when I was in third grade and going through my purple phase. As a kid I would stamp a colored post-it note and hand it to people as my business card. This year, I finished each book on the next-to-last page with this stamp bearing my name, which was for me, pretty nostaligic. It’s really satisfying to make a gift that reflects both the giver (internet and book nerd) and the recipient (idiosyncratic friend of a nerd), and walks that little bridge in between.
The thank you notes have been really sweet as well:
mia is here
mia is great
mia is visited almost every day by a pod of wild bottle nosed dolphins who swim in from the bay
mia is described by variety as “a giddy
mia is a beautiful
mia is smart
mia is an endearing little mouse who lives in the attic of an old victorian house and barely survives when her home catches on fire
mia is very
thanks again; it’s definitely the best gift i got this year, or rather, in years. handmade gifts dwarf any store-bought gift (and that includes iPods).
mia is awesome
aww i think you made that one up.
I LOVED my Holiday Exilir (Krupnik - honey spiced vodka) you made!
I think i might become a lush, adding it to my coffe and taking little nips from my purse.
mmm delish! do you have any photos of the adorable bottle on your site?
Just the pep medicine i needed for the holidays! hehe.
Mia these are adorable!!!!!!!!!! The best gifts are handmade. Happy new year!
Hey! Thank you Leah!! I appreciate that. Hope Hollywood is taking good care of you. Happy New Year!
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