Itarf Designs
Handmade Books and Cartonnage

I come from a family of artists. I enjoy photography, crocheting, embroidery, sewing, and painting with watercolors and acrylic paint. I am also an avid reader. You can find me listening to a book while working on projects. Embroidery was comforting when I was recuperating from pancreatic cancer. I needed something more at that time and became interested in bookmaking and doing Cartonnage. 

 

l love creating and designing. I love fabric and pretty papers.  Art is calming to me. There is nothing like sitting down filling in a design with embroidery threads or folding papers that make up the signatures for books.  Selecting fabrics and unique papers are part of the process which is intriguing. Having a project come together is so exciting. The whole process of creating is extraordinary to me.

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Itarf Designs Bookmaking and Cartonnage is a small company that makes handmade books and Cartonnage boxes. I am Itarf designs. It gives me great pleasure to take the time to create a design and find the right fabric/paper for each book. I make all of them different.   Each Cartonnage box is unique as well, taking on a new personality through fabrics and at times embroidery. 

 

I love creating for you and hope you find the book and/or Cartonnage box that speaks to you.

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Disclamer:

This is handmade

I'm not a machine.

So please have some grace

for uneven things.

While yes, there may be

some imperfect techniques,

​that's what makes this piece

so very unique.

I can promise you this

I create with care,

a lot of love

(and maybe some pulling of hair!)

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With Artful Love,

Alice Frati

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