To celebrate the new year, Isa takes her workshop on the road and settles down at Café des Pratiques (Besançon France) for 4 days of open and free bookbinding demonstration.

The event takes place from 11th to 14th January, 2012.

Café des Pratiques is at 105 bis rue de Belfort, Besançon, France.

Detailed program:

Wednesday 11th : learn to do coptic binding (photo albums and notebooks)

Thursday 12th : leather notebooks

Friday 13th : tiny coptic books

Saturday 14th : traditional japanese bookbinding

For more information, call +33 (0)3.81.56.20.65 (café des pratiques) or +33 (0)6 77 90 53 56 (Isa Aucouturier)

http://lecafedespratiques.blogspot.com/

We hope to see you there!

We're pleased to announce that the workshop will participate in this year's Winter Crafts Fair in Besançon, France (rue Marulaz from December 9th to 11th), alongside with a great variety of other arts and crafts. If you're around town, please come by for a great opportunity to shop for local and creative gifts for Xmas!

We have great news for you: the bookbinding workshop is now resuming operation, in a completely redesigned space in lovely Besançon, France. With prior appointment, you're welcome to come and visit, talk with us about books you'd like repaired or even created from scratch. We can provide traditional French binding, traditional Japanese binding as well as custom "fantaisie" binding. Besides any of your special, personalized projects, we have also resumed our Boutique sales of handmade notebooks, books and albums. Please have a look at our online catalog on this website: we put up new items regularly, and we ship anywhere in the world. It's great to see you back! Please enjoy your time here, and talk to you soon!

Isa wishes you a very happy new year 2011 and welcomes you to her workshop throughout the year!

Let us know if your order is for Christmas, and we'll give it full priority. However, please try to give us reasonable notice for your custom orders - remember sometimes your dream book might just need substantial production time. Also, please bear in mind that there are some delays with which we cannot help - postal services, for instance, are always busy for the holiday season, and delivery may not work as fast as usual. So, our advice: let's anticipate together, so you order makes it into Santa's bag in time!

Fresh from the Atelier, we have a few new items to help you soothe the transition back to work: - 2 photo albums, bound in coptic style, with both faces decorated with Japanese motif paper. - 2 music notebooks (with music staff paper), bound in French style, also with faces decorated with Japanese paper. Please have a look at them in the "shop" section of the website. As always, for all information and question about pricing, delivery, etc. just drop us an email or give us a call (Japan) ! Have a great September!

6 new notebooks with japanese paper (washi) in the shop today. We're very fond of the result. Click below for a direct link, and judge for yourselves!

Activity will slow down at the workshop for the next few months. Custom orders and bookbinding lessons will be suspended temporarily, starting December 19th, 2009. During all this period, direct sales from the catalog are still available, as long as stock lasts of course... (so be quick!). We're looking forward to seeing you again, very soon!

5 new calligraphy japanese notebooks in the shop today. We're very fond of the result. Click below for a direct link, and judge for yourselves!

The workshop opens its door for a special half-day, reserved for the members of AFFJJ (Association des Familles Franco-Japonaises du Japon). Visitors will discover a few Japanese binding techniques, and even get to create their own booklet. For information and reservations, email us at iaucout@yahoo.com. (members of AFFJJ - on reservation only - must speak some French).

5 new japanese notebooks in the shop today. We're very fond of the result. Click below for a direct link, and judge for yourselves!

This is to celebrate holidays for some of you, sun (maybe), and in any case summer. 3 new books have joined the shop section of the website: notebooks in Bradel style, covered with beautiful Japanese washi paper. Have a look, they're ideal companions for the summer travel season...

3 new music notebooks (in our original "coptic" style) and 3 new photo albums in the shop today. For a change, these 6 books use very little Japanese paper for decoration. We're very fond of the result. Click below for a direct link, and judge for yourselves!

The June 19th issue of Metropolis Magazine has a feature about our books! Says James Hadfield: "So nice, we'd almost feel guilty about writing anything in them. Almost". Many thanks, and welcome on this site to all Metropolis readers: hope you enjoy it! Click below for a link to the article (in English):

We have just developped a new concept of notebook for musicians, available in the "shop" section of this site. It features the usual musical paper with staves, but the innovation is that it is bound with a traditional coptic technique: it uses no glue. This makes it very durable, and allows an optimal opening - handy to jot down all these musical ideas in the middle of the jam session. Click below to go to the "shop" section of this site:

Two of our books are on display in the 5th Biennial Exhibition of the Tokyo Bookbinding Club, from April 29th to May 5th, 2009 in the Meguro Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan. One of them, the "bento book", is a collaboration with designer Mathilde Fiessinger. Click here for the Tokyo Bookbinding Club webpage (in English, French and Japanese):

Isa Aucouturier tells about her bookbinding activities in Japan, for "Chocolat" podcast, a Tokyo-based radio with a French-speaking Japanese audience. Click below to listen to the interview (in French):