A Book of Her Own

When Jill Chase went in search of a keepsake book for her wedding two years ago, she found lots of satin-quilted books trimmed with lace and ribbon, which weren’t her style. So she did the only sensible thing: She made her own wedding book.

When she wanted a book to write down notes about her garden, she couldn’t find one that suited her, so she made her own garden journal. And after she looked for a baby book for a friend . . . she made one herself.

Chase, 28, combines backgrounds in graphic design and hand book-binding to create her books, using imported papers, water-colored illustrations and ribbon trim.

Friends who saw her work soon began asking for their own books, and Apiary Press (after a love of bees) was born.

Her repertoire includes a wedding keepsake book, baby book, guest book, garden journal, travel journal and notebook. Prices range from $45 for the notebook to $110 for the baby book to $145 for the wedding book. All can be customized. She also designs stationery.

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For some of the covers, Chase uses French and Nepalese papers made with pressed flowers and plants. Others are covered with linen. She includes details such as ribbon binding on the spine and hand-torn rag paper. Graphics are done on her home computer, and the illustrations of flowers and cherubs that decorate the pages are water-colored by hand.

“When I was designing the travel journal,” Chase explains, “I was looking at my grandmother’s journal from when she went to Europe about 50 years ago. I looked at how much space she used, and it was a really well-designed little book.”

Chase made sure her version was small enough to fit inside a purse or pocket, had a spine wide enough to accommodate photos and pieces of paper without bulging, and had unlined as well as lined pages for both drawings and notes.

Before making her baby book, she looked through friends’ books to see what information they filled out and what they skipped. The result includes room for a first baby picture, and places to chart growth, note special events and write in the child’s likes and dislikes.

Chase studied graphic design at Arizona State University. She also took classes in letter-form design and photographics at Rhode Island School of Design and studied book binding in Switzerland.

She’s been a book designer at the L.A.-based publishing house Price Stern Sloane Inc. and worked in production at Angeles magazine.

The Santa Monica apartment she shares with her husband and dog reflects the romanticism of her books, with its antique armoire, overstuffed sofa, mottled golden yellow walls and a vase of peonies that sits on an end table.

“I love books and I’ve always been interested in design, and I’ve always been in publishing in some form or another,” she says, “but book binding sort of brought it all together. It incorporates everything I’ve ever done before. But it’s also really relaxing, sewing each signature (a sheaf of pages).

“I like to combine both form and function. I don’t want to have something that just sits on the shelf to be handled with kid gloves. I want something that’s going to be used, but still be beautiful. It doesn’t have to be a three-ring binder to be functional.

“Doing these books is a lot like gardening,” Chase says. “You start with nothing and you come up with exactly what you want.”