Bookbinding Workshops by Shelbyville

Sydney bookbinding workshops!
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I’m offering two different Shelbyville bookbinding workshops down in Sydney this coming weekend: Secret Belgian binding on the Saturday (7 Feb) and Cross-structure leather journals on the Sunday (8 Feb).
Swipe across for all the details, and click over to my website for more pics/descriptions and the link to book. Only a handful of places available ☺️

Excited for this Sydney road trip! It feels like I’m coming full circle because it was in Sydney, at this very same NSW Guild bindery in Callan Park, Lilyfield that I actually began my workshop teaching career back in 2008!
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Letterpress play day
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Spent a deliciously inky day with the crew at and a bunch of adventurous ladies making stacks of lovely letterpress prints ready for tomorrow’s Coptic bookbinding workshop.

My sample books are pictured here hanging out with the woodblock type…

Looking forward to seeing what everyone makes with these prints in class tomorrow :)

Criss-cross A5 Journals bookbinding workshop
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A delightful class with some wonderfully vibrant results!

Criss-cross binding always looks great, and every combination is uniquely selected by its maker, which is what makes each journal so special.

Well done to all the participants who took the tricky technique easily in their stride, with lots of smiles (laughter and conversation) during the workshop.
You were such a happy bunch!
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Letterpress + Coptic = happiness!
🩷🧡💛🩵
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The awesome folks at gave me a stack of their letterpress prints so I could make some sample Coptic books for our upcoming joint workshop at the end of November.

So I sorted them into 3 different colourways, matched them with a whole lot of coordinating papers, and bound the three books with multi-needle Coptic…two in portrait format, one in A5 landscape, just to try something different…

Also not my usual colour palettes, but loving the bright and fun results, and all that delightfully textured letterpressed inkiness!!

Workshop details:
Sat 29 Nov 2025 > a day of letterpress with Moveable Type Studio (Yeronga)
Followed by…
Sun 30 Nov > an afternoon of binding your prints into a Coptic bound A5 journal, with me at The Nest in West End.
Both days, all inclusive of materials, for $400pp.
Very limited bookings (only 8 spots) so very exclusive and hands-on ;)

If you’re in Brisbane and this sounds like something you’d be interested in, DM me and I’ll send you the link to the tix on Humanitix (or Google search it).
📚
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On a Roll - the Papermakers members’ exhibition for 2025 - opens today at the Ipswich Community Gallery!
Opening event 2-4pm today (30 August 2025)
Exhibition continues daily > see pics for all the info.
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My scrollish artwork* featuring in the exhibition is a second incantation of ‘Instructions for having a Soul’, made of cascading indigo-dyed Japanese papers overlayed with cyanotypes 💙 and featuring the incredible words of a poem by .fasano, laser-etched through the blue into the ghostly white of the paper.

(*will do a separate post on this shortly)
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Come along for the Opening Event this afternoon (there’ll be food inspired by the ‘roll’ theme!), or come visit next Thursday when I’m gallery sitting.
Artist talks are happening daily at 11:30am, and you’ll be able to meet and hear the artists speak about their work 🙌🏼
There’s an incredible range of artwork in this exhibition, from 22 different artists working in the medium of paper. I know this especially because I designed the lovely catalogue for the show - make sure you grab a copy if you get a chance!
(*Will also post about the catalogue separately soon!)
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Wrap-around leather journals workshop - the results 🙌🏼
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Quite the array of colours in this last workshop! Beautiful results…each one distinctly personal to its maker, just the way it should be ;)
Nice work guys 👏🏼
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Bookbinding workshop - Wrap-around leather journals - in full flow.
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It’s fun to capture these moments of a workshop when everyone is in the flow of the craft, and enjoying the process of creating their own particularly unique leatherbound journal.

Colour choices (leather, thread, papers) are always highly personal, reflect the maker’s personality/needs, and often match the creator’s outfit (!).

Narelle, for instance, made herself a travel journal of gold leather with teal thread, that coordinated perfectly with her found pages of Egyptian imagery.

Matt was making a classic brown-leather journal with navy stitching and blue-lined pages he’d printed himself before the workshop, as a gift for his son.

Vanessa used her own beautiful eco-printed pages within a leather cover of soft textured brown (with a cutout window) and chartreuse yellow thread.

Her friend Eva made a journal of bright sunshine yellow, filled with pages of contemporary and colourful kids’ storybook illustrations, and also incorporated a cutout window in the spine for good effect.

These were just a few examples - I’ll show some more of the finished results in a follow-up reel…
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It’s that time again when I pull everything together for an upcoming workshop…
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Later this week, it’s the Wrap-around Leather Journals workshop, and I’ve been making the acrylic template sets (including the layered corro cardboard trays that hold them) that we use in the class, plus all the extra bits like Sewing-Hole Markers and little custom-made acrylic templates for the stitched-on leather straps and closures.

I’ve made a few more sample books, signage letters (including co-ordinating amethyst purple), and even updated the instruction sheets.

And I’ve been guillotining lots of new ‘found’ and vintage papers that participants can use as special pages throughout their journals.
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Only a few more days to go. I’m nearly set, and looking forward to Sunday’s class!
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The last few pics are from a very, very fun previous workshop - one of the first where I taught this particular A5 Wrap-around Leather Journals bookbinding style (and definitely one of my favourites)
😁
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