Let's get it started! *

I have really been lagging behind on this Business.. business. I've researched adequate packaging for shipping, checked out what other people are selling, had a few ideas, made some things... But I feel I haven't really gotten stuck in yet.

I haven't actually made any products for listing, and ArtFire's 45 Day Guide suggests having at least 100 products to list. So last night, I began to make a small 100 page notebook to fill with product ideas and material requirements and probable costs. I definitely don't have 100 ideas in mind yet, but it's okay. I have a few to get started with.

It just needs some holes and some stitching together. I could have stitched it simply last night, but I want to try something experimental with a macrame spine...



* Have you seen the movie Hot Tub Time Machine? I loved it. Check this out - although I reckon it's better in the context of the actual movie! :)

Sheep Poo Paper, Make Something a Day & Tumbleweed Tiny Houses

Whew! Today was the hand in day for my dissertation first draft. Before today, I felt a little bit guilty every time I was doing something other than coursework. It was my 21st birthday on January 10th, and I actually spent the morning working on the dissertation! I did treat myself to a nice long day at the Camp Sossage [translation: the house my guy-friends live in] playing Rock Band and drinking cocktails the next day though, as a reward for being well behaved enough the previous night to catch the bus in the morning and make it in to my first ever lecture at the new Newport City Centre Campus.

Speaking of birthdays, it's my sister Abi's birthday today. I have told her already, but, Happy Birthday!

Now I've uploaded my draft and can relax a little while I let myself work on some other things...

What I got up to today...

I found out something I didn't know. There are people here in Wales collecting sheep poo to make paper out of the cellulose fibres they didn't manage to digest... It sounds gross, but the process sterilizes everything, creates good fertiliser as a by product, and actually creates decent looking paper. You'd never know it came out of a sheep's back end! Here is their website.

My browsing of the the Internet has also lead me to 365, a website all about making something, anything, everyday for a year.

I've been feeling so stuck in a rut lately - that is, until I complained about my lack of time to do what I want to my friend Dave. He told me, in true Dave "Mr Motivator" Ware fashion, that I had nothing but time. Strictly speaking, that's not true... but what I think I need to realise is that I can spare ten minutes every day to complete a little 2inch by 3inch page, in the art journal I made for myself today after watching some videos by Moxylyn. Such as this one:

365 has presented me with the challenge of actually doing it. My little art journal only has 120 pages including the cover pages, so I'm going to have to make a couple more of the same to have enough pages for a year. I have no pictures of it yet because I haven't actually sewn it together [I'm thinking a nice bit of Coptic Stitching]. I made it specifically to doodle in because I definitely don't spend enough time out of my own head these days, so using some paper once a day should be good for me!

Something quite unrelated to book making but a wonderful example of design [and also creating something that I now really want to own for myself] is the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company. Check it out, I actually love the look of these things.

The tinier ones can be built on trailers and can technically be considered RVs, even though they look like tiny houses! My favourite at the moment is the Weebee. I really really want one, but I don't think right now is quite the right time to get one, what with having my nice big standard Uni room for another few months and my dad busy building a nice extension to the side of our house. And don't even ask me where I'm planning to live next year when I've graduated... Current ideas involve moving to Cardiff with a few of the Sausages, one of which has already graduated. The others will be in their final years doing film degrees [ = free access to really good cameras].

I think I would like to live there with them. But I'll need to get some work done and start earning some income if I'm going to keep on top of rent without blowing my savings of the past few years!

Lovemoney.com

I've recently decided to check out Lovemoney's free online banking service to help me with managing my money.

Originally, I was just typing in numbers on a spreadsheet from my online bank statements to work out my net outgoings and income each year since I've had a bank account. I found out about Mint.com's service today, but then I realised it was for people living in the US. While searching for a UK version, I found out that I was too late too for the no-longer here Kablax, but there is another website called Money Dashboard, which uses the same software as both Mint and Lovemoney.

After a quick bit of browsing I found some complaints about Money Dashboard using some sort of Microsoft Silverlight software or something. Something about it eating CPU something or other. I didn't feel much motivation to get too engrossed on the details.

Having not really found any major complaints about Lovemoney, I've decided to give that one a go first. I got a little chuckle reading the terms and conditions:

"We only provide aggregate, non-identifiable information to our current and prospective advertisers and business partners. For example, we might tell advertisers that we have 120,000 registered members in Metropolis, but we won't tell them that Superman is one of them, and we won't tell them that his email address is ckent@dailyplanet.com."

Should be good, but we'll see how it goes.

Oh, and incase anyone wants to read the post that started me off today in the first place, here it is: How To Understand (and Create) A Personal Financial Statement Each Month In 5 Minutes by Brian Armstrong

Calendar/Notebook

This week I've been working on this design:

Made from a sheet of white A4 paper cut into four, it has one station of four sheets and the covers are made of the same paper as the pages. There are enough pages for a page per month. The spine is decorated with four light blue metallic beads [these ones were cheap ones I bought from the local pound shop in Saundersfoot - unfortunately the metallic blue wears off quickly, but leaves a nice translucent white plastic underneath] with macrame square knots in between, and the excess thread from the knotting can be used as a book mark. Didn't follow any instructions for this one, it's a simple design I worked out myself.

Inside can be drawn a month calendar on each page, with space below each for notes. In mine I have written in the daily Chinese "earthly branches" and "heavenly stems" in pencil with the intention of painting the squares in a pattern using those colours as a guide. I'm not sure why I like that theme so much. Maybe it's the way the simplicity of the five elements and twelve animals can build up into something really complex when they interact.

And because it's winter, here's a pretty picture I took of the view outside my window before I left my Uni bedroom for the holidays:

I might draw this on the cover for decoration. I might not.

Coptic Stitch and Secret Belgium Bind

I have finished my first four books; three bound using Coptic stitching, and one using the Secret Belgium binding technique [using these instructions, but adapting the Coptic stitch to incorporate the stations].

These three were lightly tea stained after being stitched together. They are shown here drying on the radiator.

They measure 20mm across and 30mm tall, using cardboard from a cereal box for the covers.

Here are the materials used for the book bound using the Secret Belgium Binding technique. The carboard was taken from a box of Carlsberg.

I forgot to bring a ruler with me from uni [woops!] so I used lined paper from a notebook to measure out the cardboard and the spacing between holes, and punched the holes using an ordinary pin [seen on the cork].

Halfway through the cover binding process:

The book itself is just over four lines wide and five lines tall when closed, and I used the lined notebook paper for the inside pages; five stations of four sheets, because one notebook page divided nicely that way.

These have been nice little practice runs for my first book binding attempts. I expect making bigger versions is only a matter of using bigger sheets and longer lengths of thread. What I'm really looking forward to is decorating the covers of the bigger versions, and developing some styles :D

Ooh, hello there :)

My name is Charlotte Gyseman, and I'm currently in UWN studying a BA Hons in Computer Games Design.

Unfortunately, I seem to be a bit more into design than I am into computer games, so I'm not likely to be jumping into the games industry head-first when I leave uni... However, it's not all bad. I've learned lots of things here, much of which could come in handy sooner or later... such as making fancy banners for my ArtFire Studio...

But for now, I just love to make stuff... And that is what's going to happen when I leave university :) As you can see, it's happening already, and I haven't even left yet. Some urges just can't be stopped!

So here you will get to see lots of lovely pictures and read some descriptions of what I have been getting up to, as I prepare to set up shop and become my own boss.

Welcome to the CharGyse Designs blog!