Item:  Golden Compass Journal
Seller:  yatsu

I received a heads up to check out this Etsy shop from a fellow Twitter addict user named @yoboseiyo.  This handmade fan told me that this Etsy shop (yatsu) has awesome handmade books.  So glad I checked out this shop – I love these books!

My favorite item from this seller (yatsu) is this “Golden Compass” book.  The book is selling for $40.00 and measures 6 inches by 6 inches.  It has 160 pages of major hefty brown kraft paper, which the handmade seller says turns out to smell great!  Fab bonus!

The seller says this book can take a number of mediums – it handle paints, washes, ink, etc. like a champ.  I think this would be a really cool gift for any of the ladies in my book group.  (We’re currently reading “100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, by the way!)  It could be used as a simple, traditional “pen-only” journal, or someone could get really creative and paint it in as well!

The cover of this handmade book is shiny paper with map compasses on it.  I love the humor of this Etsy seller.  The seller writes in the Etsy item description for this item that the cover is “sparkly enough to blind a dude at twenty paces.“  Gotta love cute Etsy sellers!

Need to see another photo of the book?  Check it out below:

If you are a handmade book connoisseur, or just a curious “how’s they make it?” buyer, check this out.  The book is held together using a Belgian binding done in monofilament, which (the seller says) turns out to be the most evil thing to bind with evarz.  What’s the result?  You can’t see any of the binding thread.  Belgian binding involves weaving the binding thread around the cover and through the spine of the book block.

Before you can say “HUH?”, the seller breaks it down in the item description.  The spine isn’t technically attached to the pages in any way – it’s held in place by this weaving.  Very cool!

If you are looking for a great, quality gift for an artist or book lover, I would be sure to check out this Etsy shop!  Great products and looks to me like the seller is pretty rad too.  Just click on the seller’s shop name (yatsu) at the top of this feature to browse.

Thanks for the awesome suggestion @yoboseiyo!

- Jackie