Making Origami Things

At our first meeting of 2026, we got together to do some origami. We had a few different origami projects ready to share so everyone who attended was able to try all of them. Marilynn was teaching the very practical masu box with lid. Stephanie was teaching a fun origami star. Rhonda was teaching the little origami book and the iris flower and Heather was teaching the fancy little dragon. It was a nice mix of techniques and everyone had a wonderful variety of finished items. Have a look at some of the results!




Thank you to those teaching and to everyone who came out to participate!

Making Miniature Books

We had a fun time today making a batch of miniature books! Joe Landry and Katherine Victoria Taylor put together some great kits and brought all the necessary tools, glue, and materials so that everyone could go home with a finished little book ornament. Thank you Joe and Katherine!


We started out with this little kit, complete with candy cane. It included some beautiful chiyogami paper, blank pages for the textblock, boards, spine linings, and thread. In the end, everyone had a fancy little book suitable to be used as a holiday ornament. Great job, everybody!

Katherine Victoria Taylor: A Modern Journeymanship

When someone speaks with passion about their craft, you can't help but be excited to learn more.

At our most recent NSBAG meeting, Katherine Victoria Taylor took us on her journey of becoming a letterpress printer and press mechanic, also touching on bookbinding and papermaking.

Crediting her 'apprentice' years to Joe Landry, Katherine's journey, overcoming working with intimidating large Vandercook presses, took her to workshops, internships, and artist residencies with expert letterpress printers, designers, and press mechanics in both Canada (Ontario & Nova Scotia) and the United States (Maine, Alabama, Georgia, Wisconsin, Illinois, New York). Katherine spoke about the techniques she developed in press mechanics, the willingness to spend extra time learning new skills, the all-important networking to meet and work with the experts, like Paul Moxon, and bringing those skills back to Nova Scotia. She also explained that printing presses were not just for printing books, but that letterpress printing was often used in making posters with political statements.

Although the names of most of the experts that Katherine mentioned were unknown to me, I was pleased to realize that because of Katherine's networking and invitation, I also had the chance to work with one of them, Amos Paul Kennedy, a well-known letterpress printer who participated in some of the Gaspereau Press Wayzgoose days where we created statement posters.

The slide show and talk was informative, and Katherine’s excitement about letterpress printing and press mechanics was contagious.

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Submitted by Heather Loney

Card Exchange 2025

Thirteen of our creative group members signed up to participate in our second card exchange. Each participant made a full set of cards so they could give one to each of the other participants. This exhange has no specific guidelines and everyone is free to employ whatever book arts or paper arts skills they like to use. The results include a wide range of techniques including painting, illustration, collage, stitching, letterpress, pop-ups, rubbings, stamping, paper cutting, and more.

Some participants created an edition with twelve cards that are all the same and some participants made each card unique, in which case only a few are shown here.

	Stephanie Morley A set of cards featuring a sewn fabric bunting and stamped text.
	Tabatha Cass And edition of handmade cards printed with an original lino block design in two colours.
	Sally Crawford Handmade cards each featuring a unique eco-printed paper.
	Barbara Dugas An edition of handmade cards featuring a time-themed collage and stamped text.
	Sara Davison A set of handmade cards each featuring a unique collage.
	Rhonda Miller An edition of pop-up cards with a lino print on original marbled paper and a quote, printed black on black, using hot foil.
	Marilynn Rudi A set of handmade cards featuring illustration, watercolour, and stitching patterns each with a customized envelope.
	Julie Rosvall An edition of cards featuring a debossed pattern printed from original knitted textile and a letterpress quotation inside.
	Catherine Vardy A set of handmade cards painted with watercolour washes and embellished either with embroidered landscape lines or Tree of Life rubbings.
	Emily Doucette An edition of handmade cards featuring an original lino block print on text with customized envelopes.
	Heather Loney A set of cards each with an intricately hand-cut letter customized for each recipient.
	Rowan Theakston An edition of handmade cards featuring a hand-drawn illustration on mulberry paper.
	Wanda Squire An edition of accordion booklets titled Art, Science, & Politics

Stitching Patterns

In spite of that snow-day cancellation last week, our group met this weekend to explore some stitching patterns that could be used for making exposed bindings. Heather Loney told us how she had spent some time working out many different stitching patterns for binding. She shared her planning process and some tips for us if we want to try making new patterns in the future.
Heather had, very helpfully, prepared a few patterns for us to try. She came equipped with several pre-punched sewing cards and a dozen spools of thread for us to use. Everyone made at least three of these following her instructions.
Heather and others also brought along a variety of handmade books that demonstrated a wide range of exposed binding styles for discussion, comparison, and inspiration.
Thank you, Heather, for sharing this with the group!

Book Swap 2024

NSBAG's 2nd annual book swap was held Monday, November 25th at the Central Library. Eleven books wrapped in brown paper were numbered and placed on a table. Participants each selected a number, and then one by one, the parcels were slowly unwrapped to oohs and aahs. The creator of each book gave details of their work.

Just like last year, participants outdid themselves creating a lovely variety of one-of-a-kind hand bound books, from traditional to modern. Each book uniquely displayed its maker's creativity, style and skill. Well done, bookmakers!


After the book swap, Heather Loney spoke about NSBAG's participation in Nocturne 2024. She showed the remains of the Oxford Illustrated Dictionary that was dismembered to create miniature books, and offered leftover mini books to attendees. We also had an antique iron to give away as a doorprize. Congrats to Sally who got to take it home.

You can find photos of each swap book here:
Rhynn Winstead Larry Cowell Heather Loney Rhonda Miller Stephanie Morley Joe Landry	Emily Brown Sally Crawford Jeffrey Cowling Katherine Taylor Marilynn Rudi

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Submitted by Marilynn Rudi

Fall Open Studio

To start off our new season, we had a casual open studio gathering at MyHandboundBooks Studio in Halifax since we were unable to have our previously scheduled guest speaker at the library. We'll definitely reschedule that for another time!

Instead, it was a simple drop-in event with tea and cookies and the option to make a couple of simple take-aways: book marks and buttons! The Kwikprint was set up to do some gold foil printing on bookmarks. We also had a button press on hand to make a few pin-backs.

It was good to have a chat with those of you who were able to come!

Postcrossing and Mail Art

At our meeting this week, Marilynn Rudi gave a lovely presentation about her involvement with the Postcrossing project and how, for her, that has extended into the realm of other paper arts like mail art and collage. She explained how she got involved and how it all works and probably sparked some interest in a few of our members! Postcrossing is free and open to anyone who enjoys sending and receiving mail.

Marilynn joined Postcrossing a couple of years ago and has sent and received over 200 postcards. She has received postcards from about 40 countries. Also, Marilynn has since become further involved with other mail exchanges that include elaborate mail art featuring collage, hand lettering, painting, and other elements. Many examples of her postcards and mail art were on hand for members to admire. Thank you, Marilynn, for sharing with us!

Making a Pop-up Octopus

Last week, our group gathered to look at some pop-up books and we made some pop-ups too! We started by making some simple cut pop-up shapes then finished with a pop-up octopus card, in many colours!

If you would like to make a simple pop-up octopus, you can follow along right here. You will need two sheets of cardstock, scissors, and glue.

I created this 3-piece octopus image that you can download here as a PDF. This is a one-page document that you can print on standard printer paper though I recommend printing it on cardstock for added strength.

Follow these steps to make your pop-up card. You can click on the photos to make them larger if necessary.

Step 1
Download the PDF, print it, and cut out the three pieces.


Step 2
The second sheet of cardstock should be folded in half for the base. Starting with the 4-tentacled piece of the octopus, fold it in half as shown here.


Step 3
Apply some glue to the back of the 4-tentacled piece of the octopus and attach it to the base card. I pasted only the central part and left the ends of the tentacles loose, but you could glue it down entirely. Make sure the folds are aligned.


Step 4
The two other parts of the octopus need to be folded along the lines as shown in the following photograph.


Step 5
Fold as in the following photograph and cut the little corner bit off both pieces.


Step 6
On the back of these pieces, apply glue to the tabs as shown here.


Step 7
With the octopus head piece bent at an angle, as shown, attach it by sticking the tabs onto the card, overlapping the bottom half of the octopus that is already attached to the base. (The second photo here shows it from the back.) Make sure the centre folds are all aligned.


Step 8
The last piece is attached the same way, nestled in behind the head. Make sure the centre folds are all aligned.

Now when the card is closed, the octopus should fold flat, and it should pop up when the card is opened. Voila!

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Card design and tutorial by Rhonda Miller

NSBAG Book Swap 2023

On November 29th at the Halifax public library, the book arts group held a book swap! Bookbinders ranged from master bookbinders, and workshop aficionados, to book newbies. We had 16 people present for the swap, with a total of 17 books (with one absent member who contributed a book). This was probably the most well-attended book group meeting of the last couple months, which is encouraging to note that everyone loves making a book for someone else!

All books were wrapped and numbered then everyone drew a number
to determine which book they would receive.
We got to see many examples of hand marbled paper from Rhonda's marbling workshop, all of beautiful colours and designs. Other books included some repurposed covers from thrift store finds, a folded book made of handmade paper, a book box with tiny ornaments, case binds, Coptic binds, Japanese binds, and an entire book filled with sheets of coloured watercolour paper.

All of the books, revealed!
Even given a number of restraints, the books turned out all different and beautiful, showing people's progression in binding, but also an array of interests and styles within the field. It was an opportunity to see different bound styles, and I personally am excited to try a repurposed binding, or having a pressed flower on a cover.
Thank you to all who participated and hopefully we will plan another swap soon! Happy binding.

Here you can find all the books featured individually:

- Marilynn Rudi
- Jamie Pratt
- Sally Crawford
- Ron Fritz
- Em Doucette
- Heather Loney
- Tabatha Cass
- Joe Landry
- Rhynn Winstead
- Larry Cowell
- Emily Brown
- Ariel Bissett
- Jeffrey Cowling
- Andrew Fraser
- Taryn Neufeld
- Rhonda Miller
- Stephanie Morley

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Submitted by Taryn Neufeld

Japanese Papers with Jamie Pratt

It was wonderful to have Jamie Pratt at our meeting last night, speaking to us about Japanese paper. Jamie has been the Halifax area representative for the Japanese Paper Place for over 25 years and she has been a friend of Nancy Jacobi, the founder of the JPP, for even longer. Jamie says she fell in love with handmade Japanese papers because they are so beautiful, exceptionally well made, and have so many different uses. It was a pleasure to hear Jamie's presentation and have a look at all the samples she had for us to examine.

Jamie talked briefly about the history of papermaking in Japan and how the number of families producing paper in Japan has decreased dramatically in the past century. In the 1800s there were as many as 80,000 families making paper in Japan, whereas now there are about 400.
Jamie provided a number of paper samples for us to examine and talked about the many different uses the papers have. She had samples of prints, artwork, handmade books, and other objects all made from Japanese paper, as well as a wide selection of publications about washi and its myriad uses throughout history.
Thank you, Jamie, for a very interesting evening, and thanks also to everyone who came out for the meeting. See you next time!

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Submitted by Rhonda Miller

Boxes of all kinds

At our group meeting yesterday, Joe Landry spoke to us about various box structures and presented a wide variety of samples from his collection.

Master bookbinder, Joe Landry, has been binding books since he was a little boy, seated at the bench in his uncle's bindery in Halifax. Joe received his formal training in England at the London College of Printing. Upon graduation, Joe studied conservation of rare books and manuscripts at West Dean College, University of Sussex, where he apprenticed with noted book and paper conservator Chris Clarkson. At Montefiascone, Italy, Joe taught conservation to students from all over the world. Since 1999, Joe has taught hundreds of students at NSCAD University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He has produced books for film and television, and has made regular appearances on the acclaimed History Network series, The Curse of Oak Island, to offer advice and expertise on book-related matters. Joe has had some very prestigious clients, including King Charles III, and examples of Joe's work are held in a number of collections internationally.

Joe showed us over twenty different box structures and book enclosures. These examples included many that he'd made as well as numerous historic examples that he has collected over the years. Joe shared his experiences working with and constructing various styles of protective enclosures and how they are used in library and conservation settings. Thank you Joe, for your knowledge, your time, and your stories!

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Submitted by Rhonda Miller

A Collection of Handmade Books

Rhonda Miller has accumulated a collection of over 80 handbound books and artists' books, made by nearly as many bookbinders and book artists around the world. For our March meeing, Rhonda brought most of this collection for the group to examine and discuss.

Her collection was acquired through a variety of book swaps over several years. Rhonda has participanted in many different types of swaps and she disucssed the different formats that she had participated in and how this had been a great way to build a varied collection for studying and teaching. The collection includes handbound books in a wide range of styles and structures utlizing many different materials and techniques, both familiar and unfamiliar, common and uncommon.

Blank books make up a substantial part of the collection, some of which can be seen here in the first two photographs. Most of these swaps occured between 2007 and 2012. Some of the swaps were documented on her bookbinding blog at the time, where there are also pictures of a few of the many books that she made and sent out to others.

Other swaps were more focused on content-driven books and artists' books, including numerous miniatures from an edition exchange, most of which can be seen here.

Later this year, the Nova Scotia Book Arts group is planning to host a blank book swap within the group. More details about how to participate will be shared soon.

Update: Check here for more details about our book swap.