A site for my handmade cards, accompanied by my photos and written meanderings which are occasionally witty, often tongue-in-cheek, and rarely profound. Beginning in June 2013, you'll also see lots of NBUS, which is an acronym I coined for Never-Before-Used-Schtuff. Note: my Privacy Policy can be found at a tab below and you can find my NBUS Challenge online. I hope you'll join in the fun there! Thanks for coming by! Have a beverage and enjoy!

My Book/Journals

Hi Readers!

My Book of Cards


To self-publish my book, I used a company called "Blurb."  It was at a time when these self-publishing book companies were just hitting the Internet and Blurb was getting good reviews so I just clicked on it one day.  The process was very self-explanatory and user-friendly (I'm pretty nontechnical) so it didn't take long for me to transfer the cards that I had faithfully scanned into my computer from 2003-2007 and put them into the soft-cover book form that you see on my page.  Back in 2007, the price was only $32 and it's beautiful with lovely glossy pages.  It's has a soft cover, but it is made very well, very sturdy.
The thing is, I did this just for me, not for resale.  As with my cookbook I did for my sisters and me, it is just for personal use.  Because I started making cards before computers had all these capabilities, I used to just scan my cards, print a color copy and then put them in photo albums.  The reason I did that was because I wanted to keep track of where they went, so I didn't send the same person the same card and also, because I often go back through the years and years worth of cards I've made for ideas. 
In other words, I use my own book of work for inspiration.  I've made so many cards that I look back and say, "Oh, cool, I made that?!" because I'll have forgotten, and then I'll CASE (copy and share everything) my own work.
I've put my Book of Cards on my blog merely as inspiration for you to do the same with your "book of work."  In these times, it may even be smarter and cheaper to produce an eBook, unless (like me) you love the feel of a book in your hands.  You'll find tons of information available for you online if you choose to pursue self-publishing.
Feel free to let me know if you have any questions.  My email is on my profile page. 

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My Journals


For a full gallery of journals, please take a look here.  Journals make great gifts.  Thanks for looking!



















Please enjoy!







6 comments:

Redanne said...

Hi Darnell, just popped over from your blog to have a look at these. they are so very beautiful and such a great idea. I love, love, love that butterfly one - it's gorgeous! A x

Craftychris said...

These are so gorgeous! xx

May said...

Simply Stunning.... Hugs May x x x

Loll said...

Love your journals!! I'm so glad you mentioned them in your recent post. What a wonderful gift for a friend!

Veronica said...

These are beautiful. I love the sunflower one.

Anonymous said...

You made these? So cool. Are they Moleskines, covered with patterned paper and such?

People are always asking me if I do bookbinding, but I'n scared to, because to cut and bind a book it seems you must have to be so *exact* -- all the edges lined up exactly right -- and I am ... not exact. I'm not actually that good with my hands, so it's odd that I am so into crafting.