BookBinding for love

When your in art school you don’t just take photography classes- you get to dabble a bit in other areas. And I dabbled in bookbinding. This project was the first project I did but I thought I should blog about it because Vday is almost here and this book is all about love. I made a flag book with mini envelopes that contained various love notes that Natalie(my wife) and I had written to each other over the 6 years before we got married. I even ended up using a wax seal that we bought in Italy with our first initials intertwined. I love how it turned out! To see more photos/read more about it, hop over to my article on So You’re EnGAYged.

We both already know what we’re getting each other for Vday. Let me say that I can’t EVER keep something exciting from Natalie. I don’t think she has ever received a present I didn’t tell her about first. Maybe…maybe once. In 8 years. But this weekend we are going on an old steamtrain across the CT countryside to look for migrating eagles. It’s the one weekend a year you can spot them and while just an old train ride itself would be fun, the eagles idea was a huuuuge bonus. Then the train stops in a tiny town where we’ll have lunch and look around and take the train back. May I also say said train ride is super affordable? Then we’ll either grab chinese food and watch movies(I know, the excitement is unstopable) or go to Scozzi for their killer risotto. This was all Natalie’s planning that I begged her to tell me because I actually am not big on surprises- they make me nervous. I like to prepare and build excitement. So we looked for binoculars online.

I found her Vday present on Etsy of course. But I’m making it mine too. I’m having a artist actually handcut silhouettes of us from one of our wedding photos. So when I get said papercuts, I’ll hang them up of course. But not before I scan the silhouettes and insert our last name which I had calligraphed. So it will be our two silhouettes facing each other from opposite sides of the frame and our last name below that. I’ll print it and frame it to hang next to our actually handcut silhouettes. This is actually something that harkens back to our honeymoon. We were in Paris and finally got to the big museum I had been literally dying to go to. We were running late and the museum would close in 2 hours, so I was kind of dashing to the museum. That’s when I saw it- a guy, right before our eyes, paper cutting silhouettes. Just with his eyes and scissors he was making these amazing papercuts. I literally could feel my heart say “STOP! Must get! So cool!” But there was a line. So we waited for 15 minutes before I realized I was missing the amazing art inside the museum. So I bit my lip and walked away. I never saw him again. Even Natalie was super bummed.

So we finally get to have our handcut silhouettes.