The Ladies of the Altar Society of Honolulu, 1888

Traditional photo albums are simply destined to get broken in a messy way because of its construction and often unconventional covers and materials. So, restoring them can be a bit troublesome, and I have to admit that they often end up getting onto our work benches last. Sorry! If you are a client who left a photo album with us and reading this, forgive us! But you gotta have to have a certain mind set to work on (messy) photo albums because it just can be tedious! It normally involves reconstructing / guarding the hinge of each page/panel and it's mentally exhausting, really.. Job itself is not complicated, but is a rather mundane task that sort of eats at you gradually. Ugh..

Here's one of those poor photo albums which neither of us, me or master, wanted to touch for a long, long time.... But like I said, we have to be in a certain mind state to tackle messy photo albums. Thank GOD it didn't have a radically raised "dome" cover boards with embroidery or naughty stuffing, or wooden skeletons underneath that stuck to the cover material like Siamese twins! This just involved reconstruction of the hinges and simple re-hinging, Whew! One problem, which resulted in our avoidance from it, other than a boring task of hinge reconstruction, was the warped boards. The pictures aren't really capturing it, but it was bad. I couldn't heat-press them because of the photographs, so all I could do was to straighten them by cold-pressing as much as I could. It looks a lot better, (mind you), and has indeed eased the degree of warping. But still, it's a bit wobbly. Well, it's gonna have to live with that and it's the fate of this photo album. Can't fight the fate sometimes!

This is a collection of photographs of Hawaii, presented to members of The Ladies of the Altar Society of Honolulu in 1888.

The Annual Register, 1782

Ugh,, where do I start.. First, my apology for my sudden disappearance and making you guys worry! Second, my yet - again apology for not responding to any of your e-mails, comments and inquiries. Ugh.. I'm soooooo sorry..

But hey, I'm still alive, yo!! (Remember when Dr. Frankenstein's creature came alive? haha, it kinda feels like it.)

Well, the thing is, as some of you might have guessed, I've fallen ill, which became sever enough overtime to pardon myself almost completely from work and any social activities. So, for the last year or so, I really had neither time nor energy to do anything other than to focus on my health and recovery.

As the amount of e-mails I've received during the time was staggering, and I'm not completely out of the woods yet, please allow me to use this opportunity to thank all of you who sent me emails regarding my standing. Thank you, from my heart.

I won't be able to work full time for a while, so my blog won't be updated as often as before, and won't be able to respond to your inquires promptly, for that I, in advance apologize, sincerely. Be patient with me. ;-)

So, anyhow, a few days ago, maybe because the weather was so nice and warm, I felt a lot better and decided to get to work. This is the finished book: The Annual Register, or a view of the History, Politics and Literature for the year 1782. (London, printed for J. Dodsley, 1783) The original was a typical half binding with nonpareil marble, but the client asked for a new full leather with custom mottling. I dyed the leather a couple of years ago, for future use, and at last it's been bound! As you see, I did a quick Cambridge on this one though the client didn't specifically ask for it. I just felt better that day, and wanted to do something little more than a plain, rather boring full leather binding. I hope he likes it.