Crafting: Vintage Graphics printed on old book paper

Here is a great idea for book arts and crafting I got from a friend on Facebook who had posted a HomeTalk article. Here is the article

DIY Book Page Art Magnet With Graphics

It's actually not just magnets, but greeting cards, book covers, book marks, and kind of paper art really. Here is what you do.

Select an old book bought at a jumble sale or library discard sale. I have several neat ones. One is a Spanish dictionary and one that is an oversized 1950s world architecture book.

HomeTalk pic

Tear out a page from it and put it upside down in the printer.

HomeTalk pic

Then find an image you like, either on your computer or on the internet. I really enjoy The Graphics Fairy for free vintage clip art and other graphics. www.thegraphicsfairy.com

In essence, you're just using the book page as your printer paper.

EPrata photo

then once the graphic is printed on your book paper, you can do what you like to it. As a first try, I made bookmarks. I am still working on how to center my graphic on the book page. It was easier to make bookmarks because I could cut them up and not worry about the centering until I gained more experience with the process-

EPrata photo

You can see here that I glued the papers onto cardstock. You can, at this point, glue them onto magnets, or fiberboard coaster material, or cardboard, or whatever.

EPrata photo

I pressed them, let the glue dry and then I laminated them with my new Swingline Laminator I bought for cheap through Amazon.  Voila!

So easy! I can see already I am going to have to buy more printer ink! ;)

Creative hobbies: here today, gone tomorow

Here is a watercolor flower I painted:

And then here is the result of inverting it on Photoshop:

I dunno...I think I like the inversion even better!

I recently went through all my scraps and ephemera and crafts. Over the last 7 years I've given most of it away. I've tried at intervals to revive my interest in the painting/bookbinding/collage/paperarts I'd been so involved in for many years. The drive and the interest just went away. Leaked out like air from a balloon.

I'm not particularly sad about it, but the hobby was interesting and fun. I was never that good, and I still have on my shelves the mistake books that I can't in good conscience give away and also unfinished books laying around, a testament to my overall crafty ineptitude. But still...it was fun to scrounge for materials and it was fun to make stuff.

It was a good run. It must have been, for me to have 7 years' worth of books and cards and stuff to still have around to give away. I am back to what has been with me since the beginning and has never left me in 45 years: my writing. That and taking photos still are my number one creative outlets. And a good knock knock joke now and then.

It's enough. No matter what creative urges come and go, I let them.