Okay, you know you’re too busy when you forget that your first book was released 2 days ago and miss doing a post on the release date…

My papercraft book and kit, Paper Chains & Garlands, is now here! It’s available to purchase exclusively through Barnes and Noble.

Front of box

I was hoping that I’d be able to sell signed copies through my site, but it turns out that the shipping costs for me to receive author copies from the US make that an impossible dream. So, instead, if you’d like to buy my book, I’d be very grateful if you’d click through from the links on my site, so I can make a tiny commission from your purchase!

Back of box with pictures of all the projects down the left hand side

For those of you without a magnifying glass, the back of the box reads:

Paper chains and garlands make everything more festive! Turn your next celebration into a creatively crafted occation to remember. Create delightful decorations on themes that range from the seasonal (snowflakes, autumn leaves, cherry blossoms) to the decorative (pleated flowers, pinwheels, elephants). The illustrated instruction book by expert crafter June Gilbank shows you how to fold, cut, unfurl, and string chains and garlands like a pro. With tips on how to cut simple paper dolls as well as elegant Chinese lanterns, Paper Chains and Garlands is the perfect craft kit for expert crafters as well as beginners.

Inside the box: the book, 4 rolls of paper chain paper and 10 sheets of double-sided garland paper

The book has full illustrated instructions for all 14 projects and includes full-size templates.

Inside the book: pretty colours, and full instructions & illustrations by me!

I hope you’ll enjoy Paper Chains & Garlands. It’s a sweet little book and kit, and would make a perfect Christmas gift, if you’re thinking that far ahead!

If you’d like to buy it, please click through to Barnes & Noble now. It’s a total bargain at only $9.95, so don’t miss out! Thank you for your support 🙂

FINALLY! I can give you a sneak preview of my papercraft book, Paper Chains and Garlands. After months of waiting, it’s wonderful to see how my projects, text and illustrations have been transformed into a thing of beauty… And it’s not only a book, it’s a kit!

Front of box

Back of box with pictures of all the projects down the left hand side

For those of you without a magnifying glass, the back of the box reads:

Paper chains and garlands make everything more festive! Turn your next celebration into a creatively crafted occation to remember. Create delightful decorations on themes that range from the seasonal (snowflakes, autumn leaves, cherry blossoms) to the decorative (pleated flowers, pinwheels, elephants). The illustrated instruction book by expert crafter June Gilbank shows you how to fold, cut, unfurl, and string chains and garlands like a pro. With tips on how to cut simple paper dolls as well as elegant Chinese lanterns, Paper Chains and Garlands is the perfect craft kit for expert crafters as well as beginners.

Inside the box: the book, 4 rolls of paper chain paper and 10 sheets of double-sided garland paper

The book has full illustrated instructions for all 14 projects and includes full-size templates.

Inside the box: the book, 4 rolls of paper chain paper and 10 sheets of double-sided garland paper

Drawing all the step-by-step illustrations took me sooo long, but I’m really happy with how clear and colourful it all looks. The inside of the book isn’t all purple, by the way – the instructions and illustrations for each project match the colours in the actual project – it’s so pretty!

Paper Chains & Garlands will be available in Barnes and Noble stores and from www.bn.com from September 30th 2009 – that’s just over a week from now!

I was hoping to be able to sell signed copies from my shop, but sadly due to the box being over 2cm thick, Canada Post would charge me $8 (Canada), $9 (US) and $16 (International) just to ship the book, which I doubt any of you guys would be willing to pay for a $10 book, right?! 🙁

I think it’s a really cute kit and I hope it’ll do well. Now I just have to wait until the 30th and see what people think of it!

The lovely Sister Diane interviewed me for the latest episode of her podcast, CraftyPod #97: Two Ways to Publish a Craft Book, with June Gilbank. We talked about our experiences in print and eBook publishing. If you have any interest in publishing a craft book at some point, either the traditional way (through a print publisher) or by self-publishing an eBook, you should definitely listen – there’s a lot more to publishing a book (either way) than you might realise!

For my non-crafty family and friends who don’t have any interest in the subject matter but just want to hear me and my English accent, my section starts at 13 mins through 🙂

I’m also very happy to be able to reveal my latest punchneedle design, entitled Serengeti Sunset. Distinctive acacia trees are silhouetted against the African sunset as giraffes and an elephant wander the plains of the Serengeti:

This design is a little different from my others – I laid it out as a long landscape, which would make a great embellishment for a purse or bag, as well as a stunning wallhanging.

I also modified the design to create a tapered coffee sleeve to fit over a standard disposable coffee cup. The loops of punchneedle embroidery form a thick, dense fabric which is perfect to use as a barrier to stop your hand from being burnt while holding your hot beverage of choice! Look stylish while you help save the environment by not using a second cup or a cardboard disposable sleeve each time you buy a coffee:

The full instructions for both the flat rectangular embroidery and the tapered coffee sleeve (with full assembly instructions) are provided in the Serengeti Sunset pattern.

The Serengeti Sunset pattern costs $5, or take advantage of my new special offers:

• Purchase any punchneedle pattern for half price when you buy my eBook, The Punchneedle Handbook
• Buy any three punchneedle patterns for only $11.25 with my custom set listing

I’ve set up a new mailing list for my punchneedle designs, so please sign up for that if you’d like notification when I release new patterns!

I hope you like my latest design! Please leave me a comment if you
do…

As you may or may not have picked up from reading my blog over the past few months, I’ve written a papercraft book, to be released exclusively through Barnes & Noble. I finished writing and illustrating the book months ago, but haven’t seen a copy of it yet, so it all feels very unreal at this point – did I really write a book?! Maybe I just dreamt it…

Well now, thanks to my friend Jana and her camera, I have proof that it really did happen! Although it doesn’t yet appear on their website, a search for “June Gilbank” on the in-store Barnes & Noble catalogue computers reveals:

That’s Paper Chains and Garlands: Easy-to-Make Decorations for Parties, Holidays, and Home Decor by June Gilbank! It really exists!

Not long to wait now – I hope I’ll be able to show some pics from the book itself shortly! I can’t wait to finally be able to show you the result of all the hard work I put into it. 🙂

I’ll be teaching again at the Creativ Festival in Toronto this October. This time I’m going to teach this adorable one-piece amigurumi whale design:

I loved this concept as soon as I came up with it because it’s all crocheted in one piece, so that means there’s no sewing required! It’s perfect design to teach in my class.

My class is on Friday October 18th, 5-6.30pm. Class registration is now open on the Creativ Festival website.

If you’re at all crafty and you’ll be anywhere near Toronto in October, you should definitely check out the Creativ Festival!

Wow, someone in the gaming/tech world discovered my amigurumi lemmings last week, and there’s been an explosion of interest and blog posts featuring them ever since! Welcome, gamers, to the world of PlanetJune 🙂

Please click through to see the full-size image – it looks so much better that way!

I’ve been getting so many requests to make sets of lemmings, I thought I’d address the issue here to save me answering it hundreds of times…

Click through to see the full-size image

I don’t think I could create a duplicate of all the lemmings I made – the walker and blocker would be fine, but the accessories for the other three took literally hours and hours to make each one, which would make my price ridiculously high! But if you’re interested in some walkers and/or blockers, I’d be happy to create them for you. Here’s an example of a commissioned set of two walkers and a blocker that I recently completed:

My rates are artist’s rates as I’m a busy designer and writer, and don’t have time to create all the creatures I have requests for on a daily basis. If you think my prices are too high, you don’t appreciate the time and care I put into each one of my creations. If you’re interested in one or more custom-made lemmings, please e-mail me and we can discuss it!

So that I can stay sane, I will only accept a couple of orders per month – I have no desire to become a lemming-making factory – so please let me know if you have an urgent deadline or are prepared to wait a while for your lemming(s) 🙂

Hot on the heels of last week’s Folding Trees blogiversary, it’s now my own blogiversary (it was a total coincidence that both launched at the same time, 2 years apart).

It’s hard to believe another year has gone by so quickly! It’s now three years since I started the PlanetJune blog! Three years ago, I had never designed a crochet pattern; I thought that starting a craft blog was probably a silly idea and that nobody would ever read it – I really just started it as a record for myself of what I was making, and to push myself to keep creating things. I never dreamed it would evolve into the PlanetJune empire of today 🙂

Year in Review

Okay, let’s see the breakdown this year:

Patterns: 17 new crochet patterns in the PlanetJune store, plus 4 new free (donationware) patterns

Eyes: Added a line of animal (safety) eyes to the shop

Tutorials: New tutorials on Crochet Basics, Sizing Up (and Down) and the wonderful Invisible Decrease

Folding Trees: Started up Folding Trees with my lovely friend Eve

Book: Wrote a papercraft book, Paper Chains & Garlands (which should be out late summer or early autumn)

And of course, the biggie this year was making the decision at Christmas time to try self-employment and see what happens…

What’s Next?

I have about a million ideas for what to do in the coming year, ranging from small projects (e.g. redesign the website a bit – I think it could be a bit more user-friendly) to more ambitious ideas (e.g. my huge in-progress secret project – c’mon, you didn’t really think I’d leak my idea until it’s ready to go, did you?!).

I think my biggest challenge is going to be prioritizing and deciding which ideas to pursue and which to put on the “maybe, one day…” list. If I’m running this as a real business, I need to try to make good business decisions and balance the risks against the potential opportunities. It’s all a bit scary because of the financial side of things – much as I’d like to do whatever I want to do, creatively, I’m going to have to try to make choices that will help to support me financially.

Hey, where’s the contest?!

I do have a contest planned, but the prizes aren’t ready yet, so I’m going to hold off until they are. Watch this space…

Thank you!

I am so, so grateful to all the wonderful people who I’ve met on this journey so far… To everyone who reads my blog, who leaves a comment, e-mails me, or follows me on Twitter, thank you for your encouragement in this crazy adventure! And of course to everyone who has helped to support me by buying my patterns or sending me donations, I am more grateful than I can say.

Here’s to year 4!
June xxx

Wow, it’s May already! I’ve been officially self-employed for 4 months now, so I thought it was time for an update on how the first third of 2009 went.

It’s funny how things work out: I’ve been so busy with other projects that I really haven’t had a chance to try to build my business at all! January to March was basically filled with writing my upcoming book, Paper Chains & Garlands, and most of April was taken up with preparation for the Creativ Festival.

In between all that, I’ve only managed to publish a handful of new crochet patterns:

L-R: African Violets, Mop Top Mascots, Basic Rose, Alpaca, PocketAmi Easter

But now it’s May, and I have nothing on the horizon, so I finally have time to come up with lots of new designs – yay! Not that I’m short of ideas, but if you have any requests or suggestions, please let me know…

Other business news: I’ve just invested in a DSLR camera (a Sony A200) to help improve my product photography. My old camera had issues with grainy noise in low light situations, so in the past I’ve had to spend a lot of time cleaning up my photos before they are good enough to publish. I’m hoping the new camera will let me get clear, sharp shots without much post-processing, which (once I’ve learnt how to use the camera!) will free up more time for other things.

And I’ve also just made a new homepage that fits in better with the style of PlanetJune. I’d love to freshen up my entire website with a new style, but that’ll have to be a longer-term project!

Old: oops, total disconnect with the rest of my site…

New and improved: matches my blog, and bonus orang pic!

Oh, and one more thing: I was interviewed about amigurumi and romanticism for the latest issue of Yareah magazine. Check out my article online.