Shannon is one of my oldest friends. I've known her since 1992. As of this writing that comes to 33 years. Over the years we have swapped Christmas presents regularly, if not every year. This year I decided to hand-bind a notebook for her. I know she is somewhat averse to technology, so I figure a notebook might be useful. I requested a list of her interests and she prompty provided 10 topics. I went to the web in search of images. I picked 40 images to disperse across a 156-page book.

Below, we have all of the images used in Shannon’s book.
Note: Some of the images look washed out because they are watermarks.
Note: Blank images are used for pages attached to the cover of the book
Note: Some of the pages with text are for Shannon, while some of the pages with text are for my wife, Haley (as I made a version of the book for her, as well).

The front of the cover features an homage to A Christmas Story. The back of the book (not shown) features a "Geaux Saints" label as Shannon’s favorite NFL team is the New Orleans Saints.

Thank you Ruben the book is awesome. You are an amazing man and I’m so happy to call you my friend, in spite of the “Cowboy thing” Merry Christmas, Ruben.

I created a special cover for Diana’s Book, including text on the joys of gardening. The book is 5.5” × 8.5” × 0.5”. The cover is 8.5” × 14”, allowing for about 1.25” of wrap around when affixing the cover to the book.

Below, we have images of the three pages in Diana’s book that are not plain. These are the title page, the property of page, a page with a haiku poem and a blank page (except for the watermark).

Pages other than the special pages, above, feature Diana’s name across the top and bottom and a large, Christmas-themed watermark. Below is a collection of the watermarks used in the book.

The watermarks derive from the Hello Christmas Icons font.

As with Diana’s book, I created a special covers for Jonathan and Zoe’s books. For Zoe’s book the text covers the joys of being a journal (from the book’s perspectie). Jonathan’s text expounds on the joys of an Octopuses Garden (because his logo looks like a scuba diver).

These are origami-themed books. The watermarks on each page are associated with origami is some way.

Note: if some of the pages, below, look washed out it is because they are watermark images.
Note: blank images are used to attach the book to its cover.

Zoe’s book features a logo I created for her a few years ago. The background is simply a repeating paisley pattern I thought looked nice.



Jonathan’s cover features a logo I created for him. Since the logo looks like a scuba diver to me, its background is “octopuses-garden” themed.

The first hand-bound book I ever created was for a friend of mine, Jonathan (of Jonathan fame). I asked him about his interests and he provided ten or so suggestions. I found images representing his topics and used them as watermarks in a 100-page book.