Monday, January 02, 2006

One Man's Trash...


Today's assignment was to turn junk into something remarkable. I came up with a 5x5 inch hand-bound blank book made of the following materials:

pages - cut from those manila envelopes with the clasp-thingy; we were tossing a bunch of used ones at work
cover board - a box that an iron came in that i was going to throw out
inside cover paper - posters from a previous theatrical production
cover paper - cool foil wrapping paper from a very special christmas gift from a very special person
thread - purple embroidery floss leftover from many previous projects

I've never hand-sewn a book before...this was quite new and exciting! I found a great tutorial for hand-sewing multiple signature blocks at Daydreaming on Paper.

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4 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice! From the demo, that seems like a lot of hard work. Good to see that damn wrapping paper put to good use (other than frustrating me while *trying* to wrap gifts.) Is it a workable book? You can turn the pages, write on them, etc? How long does it take to make? Just want to figure out how we should price them when you start making them to sell!

madretz said...

Beautiful work!! That's so cool that you made it completely out of recycled materials. And since you covered it w/ paper that is special to you, it's even more meaningful.

Thanks for the link to tutorial. I make a lot of mini-books, too. I've only made one that was stitched so I'll have to try more.

Found you via Macroday. Keep up the great work!!

madretz said...

Oops. Forgot to ask...you said this was an assignment...is there a website that goes with this task?

Thanks!

Jim said...

Thanks, madretz!
I think I can safely add "bookbinding" to my ever-growing list of crafty hobbies!

This particular assignment did not come from a website, rather grafxcowgirl and I decided to challenge eachother to get off our butts and be creative this year. We give ourselves a new assignment each evening for the following day, and our blogs are a way to hold us accountable. (we plan to keep a couple of days available for participation sites like Macroday.)