If you’re like a typical customer, you buy something, and unless it’s a commodity product (eg: say toothpaste), you tend to either like what you’ve bought, some times you even love it, […]
Pocket notebooks – So cute and the power of constraints
I think we’ve all heard some version of the saying that constraints can be great for creativity. I was faced with a constraint of sorts recently – what do I do with […]
5 tools that will help you do bookbinding a lot faster
Making a book using your hands takes time and a lot of patience. There are a lot of steps involved, and each step needs to be executed with a certain level of […]
DIY books – How to avoid your book boards from warping using “drumming”
As a bookbinder-in-the making, an issue that I struggle with when making hard cover books is the problem of the book boards warping after the book is allowed to dry for a […]
Should you take custom orders as a new small product business?
When you start a small business that sells a product, at some point you’ll run into customers who’ll ask you for something that you don’t have off the shelf. Instead, you’ll have […]
What to do when your product has a small defect or an experiment does not go as planned
Does this happen to you? You painstakingly work on your product, paying attention to all the small little details, trying to make sure that you get the little things right. And then, […]
New Zen Scribbles journals ready for purchase!
I’ve been on a bit of a journal making marathon over the last few weeks. I source leather for my journals from a furniture designer on Etsy. He usually sends me large […]
New to bookbinding? Here are 7 simple tools that can make your DIY leather journal look really good!
I love the feel of a nice leather journal 🙂 When you start out in bookbinding, making a gorgeous leather journal is really what you’re hoping you’ll be able to make one […]
Take the donut
I’ve recently been reading “The Art of Asking” by Amanda Palmer. It’s been on my bookshelf for a loooong time and somehow I never picked it up until only last week. As […]
The economics of selling handmade journals
Hmmm…..so what are the economics of selling handmade journals? Tl;dr Not great, especially if you’re making them in the US! Let’s use a simple leather handmade journal as an example. Something like […]
Sonali Mangal 