Category Archives: paper craft & bookbinding

Paper Jewellery

Posted on by

Playing With Books contains a project for making beads out of strips of paper. This gave me ideas for other ways of making jewellery out of books, and those led to ideas for using security envelopes. I’ve been working on these for several weeks now, and I’ve finally finished them.

craftyblog585

The first was a simple necklace of beads made from book pages. The book I used was the same one I cut up to make the apple and pear. I got a lot of use out of that book!

The words are in Czech, I think. I’m hoping that none of them, having been chopped into sections of words, are now rude words!

The idea for the next one came from all the excess circles I cut for the Dimensional Circle Ornaments. I punched holes in them and glued them together to make a thicker disc, painted the sides silver and then finished with a varnish of gel medium.

I liked this laminating idea, and decided to try it with the security envelopes I’ve been collecting. Not wanting a whole lot of large circles, I decided on squares. There were plenty of different patterns and colours of paper. I chose a selection of blue patterns, cut them into strips, glued them together, cut the strips in half, glued those back to back, cut them into squares, drilled holes and finished with varnish.

I had enough squares to try two different approaches. This one with beads:

Overall, making the paper beads, pendant and tiles took longer than I expected. The beads are particularly fiddly. There’s a lot of drying time involved in laminating. But time wasn’t a factor because I was having fun and making them for me. It would be a different story if I was making them to sell. But I reckon you could develop ways to speed up the process. Perhaps make bigger beads and cut them into shorter pieces. Or laminate together larger pieces of paper then cut them up.

One idea I still want to try is using paper punches that cut out shapes like hearts and leaves and laminate those together. I’ve got some punches on order. And I’d like to try making beads out of the security envelopes, as well as experiment with other kinds of paper. Perhaps magazine pages, or maps.

Plenty of room to explore here. Got any suggestions?

(And in a moment of curious serendipity, I just stumbled on this post about laminated paper jewellery made from books – with the original book as packaging!)

Something Old, Something New To Play With

Posted on by

Back when I used to be a freelance illustrator, I joined the Illustrators Association of Australia. They produced a promotional book each year which you could, for a pretty high cost, have a page in. It was sent out to all the publishing companies and ad agencies, so it was worth it for the targeted advertising.

You also, for a fee, order a bundle of copies of your page to hand out to customers:

craftyblog608

I haven’t worked as an illustrator for some years now. While I’ve now tossed the books in the recycling, I couldn’t bring myself to part with the sample pages. They’re good quality card – a little lighter than postcard thickness – with a smooth, shiny finish. Surely there’s something I could do with them?

So recently I took them to the local printer, who kindly chopped them up for a small fee:

craftyblog609

(I love how he put each stack into it’s own perfectly-sized plastic bag. He must have a machine that does it, and by golly he’s gonna use it!)

I figure the ones in the front can become postcards or greeting cards. The three strip ones above and to the right are a good shape for bookmarks, and the small rectangular ones to the left of them could be small gift tags or cards, or fridge magnets, since two have a food theme. I have no idea what to do with the ones at the back. They have maps on them, which aren’t as suited to cards and such.

Half of the images can’t be used to make anything to sell, because the copyright resides with the publisher I did the illustration or map for. But I probably wouldn’t be looking to sell anything I make out of these anyway.

Any suggestions for other uses for these little pictures and maps?

Smaller is Better

Posted on by

Though my book pear looked fine in photos, in person it was much too bigger-than-life-sized. So I cut the template into two smaller fruit shapes, then carved up the big pear.

craftyblog604

I like these even more!

Funny thing about representing objects at a different size to reality. Smaller than life size is fine, possibly cute. But if the representation is going to be bigger than life size, it kinda needs to be a LOT bigger. Just a little bigger looks odd and unsettling.

Playing With Books

Posted on by

Warning: Look away now if the idea of cutting up books bothers you.

I’ve mentioned now and then that my day job is writing books. Some of them have been translated into other languages. Most of the time I get copies of the foreign language editions. Sometimes I get far more copies than I have time to find homes for – or else I only have one or two from a series and it seems unfair to lob them one someone when they can’t get the missing book/s. The growing towers of boxes filled with books has been getting to be a problem lately.

So when I spotted this book on a blog I got very excited:

craftyblog585

I lost my reluctance to cut up books waaaaay back when I worked for a travel guidebook company, where we sometimes chopped up books to make them easier to work with, and where it was recommended that travellers cut out the sections of a guidebook you didn’t need, to reduce weight in your luggage. (The books were sewn and glued so that they wouldn’t fall apart if you did this.)

Also, working in the book publishing industry, you learn that millions of books are pulped each year. Turning a book into art or practical items seems a better destination, compared to that.

I also lost any delusions that old books have value after talking to an antiques valuer. Most books have little or no value as collectables. Some do, of course, so when in doubt it’s best to check before hacking up a book. (Unfortunately, the prettier the book the more you want to cut it up, but the more likely it has value as collectable.)

Anyway… you can’t really see it in the pic above, but there are a LOT of bookmarks in the book. Here are just a few of the projects that I want to try:

craftyblog586

Envelopes. I also want to make cards and gift tags.

craftyblog587

Mats made of rolled up pages. I can see place mats and a table runner in my future. Maybe coasters. Maybe even covers for a bookbinding project.

craftyblog588

Various ball-shaped ornaments. I might do more non-Christmassy Christmas decorations this year.

craftyblog589

And – I’m sure you’ve seen this before – books cut up to form sculptural objects.

I spent most of the last weekend trying out projects in the book. I have four of them in various unfinished states, and one completed one, so there’s going to be plenty of creative blog fodder in the coming weeks.

Inspirational Blogs

Posted on by

It’s been nine months since we arrived home from Canada. I’m noting this because it was about then that I noticed I wasn’t as obsessed with knitting and was looking for new inspiration and creative outlets. It led to me starting this blog – a fresh start and a place to record my explorations of new crafts and interests.

As time has passed the types of blogs I’ve been reading have changed to reflect that exploration. So I thought I’d stop and write about this, because when the list in the sidebar changes, a copy of the old arrangement doesn’t remain on old blog entries. Not that I want to record this in detail. Just to note the general trends.

When I started out, most of the blogs in the sidebar were knitting and weaving blogs that didn’t come up under the ‘friends’ list in Ravelry. (I still read knitting blogs in Ravelry, because it’s a more efficient system.) A lot of those bloggers weren’t posting much since Rav came along, so I removed them from the list. It also turned out that many of the weavers who blog tend to do complicated work that takes a long time, so their posts were either too technical or a long time in coming, or both. I’d decided I didn’t want to do complex weaving yet, so I culled some of those, too.

Then I added the blogs of two friends: Konstant Kaos and Pivotal Xpressions. Exploring the blogs that they listed introduced me to a whole new world of craft. The kind that involved simple, sweet little creations you could whip up in an afternoon. That really appealed. I reckon knitting caught my interest partly because my job involves working hard for a year or so before the satisfaction of finishing, and knitting gets me that satisfaction a lot quicker. Now perhaps the appeal of these quick crafts was I could get a hit of finishing satisfaction even faster.

So a lot of crafty blogs and a couple of magazines got added. But then something strange and annoying kept happening. It seemed every time I found a vibrant, often-updated blog, within a few weeks the blogger decided they’d had enough and stopped blogging.

However, I found I really liked blogs and sites about recycling and reusing stuff. Especially the sort of stuff I’ve had hanging around for years: paper and art materials. And that led me to bookbinding. Okay, I’d already had a go at this, but badly and in a simple form. I started buying books on bookbinding. I did a class. I started adding bookbinders’ blogs to my sidebar. Some of these bookbinders produce art, or art books…

At the same time as all this, I’ve slowly been gravitating back to art. I’ve been struggling with this for a few years now. Usually I get inspired to do a certain kind of art, and it occupies me for a couple of years until something else catches my interest. But for a couple of reasons I stopped painting a few years back, and since then nothing has caught my interest. All I know is I don’t want to do the sort of art I used to do.

Then I found the An Illustrated Life podcast and book, and decided that sketching would be a way to incorporate a little art into my life. This is now complimented by the bookbinding – I can make my own sketchbooks! So recently I went looking for artist blogs, particularly those who keep sketchbooks, and found plenty to inspire me. (I’m just waiting for half of them to decide they’ve had enough and stop blogging.)

So that’s where my blog explorations have taken me over the last nine months. I now read blogs about knitting, weaving, tapestry weaving, painting, dyeing, jewellery making, paper craft, sewing, home decorating, design, recycling, bookbinding, photography and sketching. It certainly makes for interesting and inspiring reading!

Try Outs, False Starts & FOs

Posted on by

This post is a mixed bag of incomplete projects, which is pretty much how things are around here right now.

I tried this tutorial, and made some recycled magazine coasters. Well, except that I wasn’t intending to use them as coasters, but trying out the method with bookbinding in mind. I remember doing this sort of paper weaving as a child. There was a way of making a basket which was similar and kind of magical, as when you were done you could open up the woven square to form the basket.

craftyblog532

After watching the two episodes on making a handbound journal on the Crafted By Us podcast, I started my own version, which uses a textured, coated card that looks like a canvas for the front and back, and scraps of ungessoed canvas for the spine. Then I used a plastic lace tablecloth (yes, you read that right) that my mum gave me as a stencil. Next step is to select and cut some paper for the inside, and bind it all together using the long stitch method.

craftyblog533

I’m taking the opposite approach with another bookbinding project: starting with the paper and making a cover to suit it. The paper came from a pad of 100% recycled, unbleached paper, and I tore it rather than cut it for a rustic, old-fashioned look. The cover will probably be made from the denim and/or cotton here, which I turned into book cloth, and be sewn with this hemp thread. Probably long stitch, to show off the thread colour.

craftyblog534

Finally, my latest bit of lost knitting mojo manifested itself in this abortive sock knitting attempt. The yarn is too thick for my favourite sock needles and the sock was too big. I’m worried at the ‘machine wash but recommend hand wash’ on the label, too.

craftyblog535

The yarn is lovely, though. I’ve frogged the sock, put the yarn aside for another project, and chosen another sock yarn to cast on.

Palm Leaf Holiday Memory Book

Posted on by

There are many bookbinding methods, and many hybrids of bookbinding methods, and while I have ones I like the look of and ones that don’t thrill me, I really want to try them all at least once. The palm leaf book, for example, is one I couldn’t see a useful purpose for, but I wanted to make one some day.

craftyblog506

It’s always bothered me a little to throw out excess photos. Back in 2005, new to this digital photography thing, I took all the snaps from my UK/Paris trip to my favourite photography shop to get them processed. They had two pricing structures: one with photo retouching and one without. I assumed retouching meant levels and contrast and such, and since I’d done a course on such things a few years before I decided to do it myself.

What they meant was cropping. Since this was my first go at having digital photos processed, I didn’t know that the images were a different proportion to the photo paper. So when I got my photos back, heads and feet were chopped off.

When I pointed out that ‘retouching’ and ‘cropping’ are quite different things, the woman at the shop went all defensive and snarky, and it was quite obvious this had happened many times already (so why weren’t they warning customers? Going to small local shops might be more expensive, but the trade off is supposed to be good service.). That’s when Paul pointed out that Harvey Norman had processing for about a quarter of the price, had helpful staff, and their computers prompted you to select how your images would be cropped. Needless to say, I never went back to the camera shop.

I had to get about 70 photos reprocessed. We also wound up culling quite a few when we put our trip album together. What to do with the old photos? Well, looking through my bookbinding books recently, I hit on an idea.

craftyblog519

What can you make out of an out of date road atlas and left-over holiday photos?

craftyblog520

Well, you cut up the photos into strips and cover two pieces of card with pages from the atlas.

craftyblog521

Then you drill holes and thread them all together into a palm leaf style ‘memory book’.

craftyblog522

The order of the photos is random, and there are no captions. Some of the photos are quite abstract once cut down into strips. But each of them reminds me of a moment during that holiday. Being small, you could slip this in your pocket, unlike the big album we have of the trip, which is a bit big to leave out to flick through at leisure.

I’m now tempted to make one from the leftover photos of our Canada trip last year. Or take deliberately abstract photos, perhaps in black and white, so make an ‘arty’ version. I can see the appeal in the palm leaf method now. It’s a very simple and novel way to make a book. (Pun not intended!)

Marbling

Posted on by

While shopping at Zart Art for bookbinding materials, I spotted this marbling kit. I did marbling waaaaay back in year 11. This looked like a cheap, child-friendly version, but I figured that was a good way to dabble without spending a lot or having to clean up oil-based paint.

craftyblog463

The first mistake I made was to use a black plastic tub, which meant I couldn’t see the inks very well. The second was to put too much ink in…

craftyblog464

… and when they say you can run it under the tap if the ink bleeds… well, it didn’t work that well. But the second piece, as you can see, was much better – little bleeding and more defined edges.

Some of the inks didn’t go so well together. Blue and black weren’t so good, but ‘red’ and black worked fine.

craftyblog465

Overall I was a bit disappointed about the colour saturation. Everything came out pastelised, and dried even paler. Then just as the novelty was wearing off, this happened:

craftyblog466

I tell you what, it was kinda freaky to lift up the page and see a face staring back at me!

Junk Mail Treasure

Posted on by

I’ve started regarding what arrives in the letterbox with new eyes. After seeing a couple of crafty uses for envelopes that bills and such come in – the ones with the ‘security’ pattern inside – I’ve started saving them. Suddenly there’s a little tingle of anticipation when the mailman arrives to see if I’ll find a new pattern.

Our local council sent us three free calendars. One we’re using, the other was too ugly and went in the recycling, and the pretty one full of local artist’s work has been cut up for use in projects. Like these:

craftyblog447

More matchbook style notepads.

Buy or sign up to something, and they’ll try to rope you into buying or signing up to more. But these attempts just provided more fodder for crafting:

craftyblog448

The Mini brochure became several notebooks of different sizes. Small ones to keep in my Mini, larger ones for Paul to use at the Mini Club.

craftyblog449

The shopping list pads are bound to end up in something else.