1134 Press

Create with Paper

While on Break

We might be taking a break from publishing videos for a couple weeks, but rest assured that we aren’t just sitting on our hands over here. Bryonna is working on new content for the YouTube channel and videos will return the week after next.

Meanwhile, I’m working on a new book of fiction that will be published later this year through 1134 Press. The hard part (the writing) is complete, the editing is also complete, and the process of laying out the book has begun. Also, new comics are still posting through 1134 Comix. Check out the latest one at the link below.

1134 Comix

While we work on some new stuff, check out our growing catalogue of bookmaking videos at our 1134 Press channel. If you’re not already a subscriber, hit that subscribe button—thanks!

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Poetry Walk

It’s snowing today in Baltimore. Snow days are always good writing days, in my opinion. I have a few writing projects in the works, and I plan to spend some time with at least one of them today. One doesn’t necessarily need a project in order to spend some time writing, though. I would argue, actually, that writing just for the heck of it is far more satisfying than writing to a specific goal. 

It might not be a snow day in your neck of the woods. Still, I would like to challenge you to spend some time today writing. It doesn’t matter what you write about. Just write; write whatever you feel. In the interest of inspiring you to write today, I am going to offer up some things to prompt you. First, I will give you one of my favorite writing prompts. Then, I am adding a link to one of our recent videos; it’s about ideas of what to write in your journal!

Writing Prompt:

This is one of my favorite writing prompts because it gets you outside and moving around. Moreover, it asks you to pay attention to the world around you. We call this one a Poetry Walk. 

Poetry Walk

1)    If it’s snowing in your neighborhood, bundle up. Grab yourself a pen, or pencil, and a notepad. Head outside. 

2)    Try to walk without a set destination. Think of it more as a wander. Try not to end up too far from home; you don’t want to find yourself calling a Lyft to get back. 

3)    Mind all of your senses. What do you see, smell, hear? Take note. 

4)    Walk with opened eyes. What might you have just walked by normally, but upon closer consideration inspires your imagination? Take note of the things that speak to your imagination. Consider these things without limitation. 

5)    Feel free to take something back with you, if it inspires you. An interestingly shaped tree branch might be a wizard’s staff in your imagination, for example. 

6)    Upon returning home with notes in hand, a possible souvenir as well, don’t hesitate—start writing! Freely write without thinking too much about it. Let your findings inspire you. The fun part about this writing is that you can never know where it will go. Maybe you begin with a story about the totally cool wizard’s staff you found, but you end up ruminating on the expansiveness of the universe—who knows! 

Now, for the link I promised: 

Find more writing inspiration below!

Making a Glue Book

In our most recent video, Bryonna makes a glue book. According to her, the difference between a junk journal and a glue book is that a glue book is a more relaxed way to use your “stash.” So, have fun with this tutorial! 

Follow along with Bryonna as she creates four collages in a three ringed binder. She uses a variety of materials in this project. The materials used include various papers, cut-outs from magazines, pictures from an old book, pressed flowers, and much more. Watch the video to see everything she used and to get some creative inspiration.

Also, there is a prompt included in the tutorial to practice your design skills using a design grid layout. It’s common to get into the habit of using the same spread over and over, albeit with different materials. Let the prompt inspire you to try some new things this week. 

Check out the video below, and give us a like and subscribe—it helps more than you know! 

Cottage Core Journal

Cottage core is whimsical by nature, which makes for a good escape. If you’re new to cottage core, watch the video for an introduction to the aesthetic. Also, in this week’s video, learn how to use clear resin epoxy, design with dried flowers, and how to use the Coptic binding method. 

Bookmaking is a great cottage core activity. Creating a cottage core inspired resin cover with dried flowers is the perfect project for beginning bookmakers! Watch the video below for more, and note: the tools used in the video will be linked in the description. 

Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe!

Junk Journal with Me

Two new Junk Journal with Me videos have gone live over the past week. Bryonna also reviewed the We R Memory Keepers Book Binding Guide. Find a brief description of each along with the links below.

In Junk Journal with Me Episode 6, Bryonna writes a letter of her intentions for 2021. The writing is printed onto transparency paper and folded (following the Paper Kawaii Origami Envelope Tutorial). See the video linked below for more creative inspiration!

In Junk Journal with Me Episode 7, Bryonna practices writing with a Trustela calligraphy pen set. She also shares some journaling prompts to help inspire your own journaling. And as usual, Bryonna shares links to the tools noted in the video.

In Reviewing the We R Memory Keepers Book Binding Guide, Bryonna makes a Japanese stab bound sketchbook. She also shows how to make a watercolor sketchbook with leather cover. Watch the video below for the review.

Bryonna's Junk Journal Process

In our most recent video, Bryonna shares her junk journal process. Bryonna made vintage ephemera that she sews together with her new sewing machine. She’s never used a sewing machine before, so this was a bit of a learning exercise. 

Also, in this video, Bryonna uses paper scraps to collage with rather than throwing them away. While showing the collage in progress, Bryonna also discusses art journaling.  Watch the video below to see the junk journal page constructed. We hope this video inspires your next junk journal page! 

Three Fun and Crafty things to do from Home this Christmas

Like many, we’ve spent a lot more time at home than usual this holiday season. We have, though, managed to keep up the holiday spirit while maintaining our social distance. With Christmas only a couple days away, I’d like to share a few of the fun and crafty things we’ve done this season. The best part is, you don’t have to necessarily be very “crafty” to do these things.

1)    Make Peppermint Garlin

Bryonna discovered this one while watching a Netflix show; I believe it is called Mr. Christmas. For this craft, you need a few bags or so of peppermint and a hot glue gun. We had two bags of peppermint, which wasn’t quite enough for our tree (but I think I made it look okay with what I had). I would suggest picking up three bags of peppermint to make a string long enough to wrap a few times around a large Christmas tree. On the show they used peppermints that had the plastic wrapping twisted at the ends. Ours were flat; they still worked, but I think the twisty ended ones would have worked better. So, use the peppermints with the twisty ended wrapping if you can.

The process is simple. With your hot glue gun, put a dab of glue at the edge of the peppermint’s plastic wrapping. Then, press the edge of another peppermint’s plastic wrapping to the dab of hot glue. Create a chain of peppermints by repeating this process. The plastic wrappings tend to hold well together with the hot glue. 

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2)    Make a Gingerbread House

This one could be as simple, or complicated, as you want to make it. For the real baker out there, you can probably pull this off from scratch. For the rest of us, gingerbread house kits are available at many retailers this time of year. We picked ours up from Five Below, so it only cost us $5.00. 

The gingerbread house was pretty simple to put together; which makes it a fun project (I recommend a glass of eggnog while building your gingerbread house). Once the four walls and roof are secured, it’s time to decorate the house. I find it tempting to try to follow the picture on the box, but the real fun is in coloring outside the lines. As you can see by the picture below, we went a little sloppy with the icing.

 Next year, we might make two of these!

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3)    Make Christmas Cards

It might be a bit late to send out Christmas cards, if you want them to get there by Christmas that is. It doesn’t hurt to get some handmade cards ready for next year, though. Bryonna is the papercraft savant around here, so I was pretty happy with the designs she came up with. Bryonna put together a video recently about making Christmas cards. The video is linked below; use it for inspiration when making your cards. Do a few test-run cards. Get comfortable with making a basic card, then add to your designs. 

 Check out the video below for some card making inspiration!

 And Happy Holidays!

Junk Journal with Me Episode 4

A new Junk Journal with Me episode is live today! Today’s video might be pretty useful, as Bryonna discusses using the journal for goal setting. With the new year upon us, it is a good time to think about our goals. One of my personal goals for the year is to finally finish some of the books I began reading this year (I tend to put books down and take far too long to pick them back up again!).

What goals do you have for the new year? Watch the video below, and get some inspiration for how to record them!

Secret Belgian Binding

Like many scrapbookers, Bryonna has been participating in the December Daily Challenge. She has competed eight, one-page collages as a way to document the days. To see the daily process, follow 1134 Press on IG. In this week’s video, Bryonna shows how she made a mixed page junk journal for the challenge. 

To bind the journal, Bryonna chose to use Secret Belgian Binding. With this binding technique, there will be more give in the book’s spine as it fills with journal pages. Also, Bryonna believes the Secret Belgian Bind looks best for vertically oriented pages. To learn this technique, watch the tutorial below. 

Pop-Up Christmas Card

This week, Bree shows how to make a pop-up Christmas card. As usual, a number of other crafting techniques are demonstrated as well. See a collage made with stickers from the Antiquarian Sticker Book. Also, watch Bree create DIY marbled paper.

Follow along with Bree to make your own pop-up Christmas cards this holiday season. Sending your friends and family handmade pop-up cards is a fun and creative way to spread a little joy this Christmas.

Enjoy the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe for new videos every week!

We're Back!

We’re back, baby! After much effort, we’ve finally gotten to a place with the big studio move where we can get back to business as usual. That was kind of a wordy sentence, but I’m going with it. Grammatical considerations aside, I’m excited for the next chapter in the 1134 Press story; I hope you are too. 

We are looking to add a slightly different style of video to our YouTube repertoire. There will still be the videos that you are already used to, but we are flirting with the idea of including more process-oriented videos; these would be a little shorter and primarily focus on the construction of various papercrafts. 

This week’s video (posted Wednesday evening), is in the style described above. I think the video has a chill vibe and is good inspiration for creativity. Check it out at the link and subscribe if you haven’t already!

Thanks everybody, and we hope you’ve had a happy and safe holiday! 

Channel Update

Hello everybody,

Well, we moved house (and the studio spaces). Unfortunately, though, putting everything back together has been much more of a process than expected. The bookmaking space is nearly together, but we were unable to execute a new video for YouTube this week. We expect to be back up and running in time to create something for next week.

The drawing studio is also coming together, but it is still a bit of a disaster area. So, no new webcomics this week either. Depending how it goes, there might be something new for 1134 Comix this coming Sunday. Anyone who has followed that page for any amount of time likely expects long lapses in new content. So, has anything really changed there?

In conclusion, we’re working to get our stuff together. We can’t wait to start putting new content up as soon as possible.

Thanks for your patience!

G.J. Sieck

Moving the Studio and Reflecting on the Journey

Since I started 1134 Comix some years ago, I have had a few studio setups. The studio changes every time I move house (makes sense, since this has always been a home-based situation). Where I sit today is the third workspace from which 1134 content has been produced. From this iteration of the 1134 Studio we created 1134 Press, which has become the flagship of this endeavor. We’ve since published five books as 1134 Press, including two 1134 Comix titles. We’ve created countless handmade books, and most excitingly, began sharing our craft in video form. After years finding its voice, and moving locations, the project I called 1134 is at last becoming itself. And again, a new studio is on the horizon. 

All that might be a long way to go just to say we’re moving; but I like to tell a story. In the beginning, this all took place in a dingey basement where I would listen to heavy metal while drawing my often-random cartoons. Then, the studio was crammed into a small room on the third floor of a Baltimore Brownstone; I actually made some of my best work there, though the work did not have very far reach. As I write from this current version of the studio, which consumes a significant portion of our Mount Vernon apartment, I can’t help but reflect on the path to this point. Though each stop along the way on this journey has had value, this stop has been the most valuable so far. With much planned for the future of 1134 Press, we look forward to setting up in the new location and beginning the next chapter.

We’ve started boxing things up in preparation for the big day. Then, once we finally get over to the new place, we will have to go through the process of putting everything back together. With that said, we are going to take two weeks off from publishing the main content. Web-comics and YouTube videos are scheduled to return in the week of November 16th. In the case that this timeline shifts, we will post updates to our various platforms. In the meantime, there will still be some activity from 1134 on the socials and our blog page. 

Binding a Coffin Book

This week we’ve come to the final installment of our Halloween themed video series. This week’s project is an homage to the classic movie monsters. Bryonna show us how to create a decorative coffin for the Spooky Photo Album. The coffin holds a flip-book full of classic movie monster portraits (drawn by me, G.J. Sieck). Bryonna also shows a number of crafting techniques. Have you ever heard of Japanese stabbing? If not, you can learn about it in this week’s video!

Happy Halloween!!

If you would like to see the classic movie monsters being drawn, check out the video below!

Medusa and Her Babies

In this week’s video, we return to the Spooky Photo album. I was unaware that Medusa hatched babies from eggs, but I guess that’s a thing. Sounds creepy, so I’m into it—perfect for Halloween! Moreover, Medusa and her unhatched children are great inspiration for the next page of our Spooky Photo Album. There’s so much in this video. Among other crafting techniques, Bryonna shows a bit of sculpting, hand lettering, and even some painting.

Check out this latest video for even ore Halloween inspiration. Create your own Spooky Photo Album to keep in your haunted library!

Making "Happy Mail"

In this week’s video, Bryonna shows how to make a uniquely decorated and designed Happy Mail. A Happy Mail will oftentimes contain a variety of ephemera. This week’s video includes ideas and inspiration for your own Happy Mail ephemera. More paper crafting techniques are also shared.

Have you ever had a pen pal, or created a Happy Mail? If so, we would love to see your story in the comments. We hope you enjoy this week’s video; subscribe if you do!

Ghost in a Mirror

As we continue further into “Spooky Season,” with our Spooky Photo Album in hand (see last week’s video), we crank the creepiness up a notch. In this week’s edition of our Halloween themed video series, Bryonna shows how to put a ghost into a mirror. Well, not really. Actually, Bryonna makes a ghost mirror; it’s not only a really fun Halloween decoration, but an appropriately ghastly edition to the Spooky Photo Album.

There’s a good chance you already have much of what you need to create a ghost mirror. As usual, though, links to necessary tools and materials can be found in the description beneath the video. And be sure to hit the subscribe button as not to miss the next update in the series.

Halloween is Upon Us

Halloween is upon us, and that means that we’re pretty stoked at 1134 Press. Clearly, this Halloween is going to be a bit different from those of the past. That’s okay, though, because there is plenty that we can do to get into the spooky spirit right from home.

This month we are creating a Spooky Photo Album! It’s an awesome project for this time of year and the materials are easy to come by; they’re linked in the video, and you may already have most at home. Make sure you subscribe to the channel to be notified when the next video drops!

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