Repurposing a hardcover book - I finally figured it out

Yay, I figured out how to both repurpose a hardcover book and also how to sew multiple signatures to make a thicker book.

The pamphlet stitch is the baby food of bookbinding. It's the basic, one-stitch-does-all. But it's a simple stitch so you can't make a huge book using it, because a thicker book uses multiple signatures, which are bundles of folded pages. The trusty pamphlet stitch can only hold so many pages before it weakens and the thing falls apart. Think, using twine to lift a table.

I had always thought that to make a thicker book I'd need to use a complicated stitch to first sew the signatures together and then sew that bundle to the cover. But this way, I use a pamphlet stitch to sew each signature separately onto the cover!

I'd prepared a hardcover a few weeks ago, ripping out the book and using just the cardboard cover to repurpose for a journal I wanted to make later. I collaged the inside front and back and painted the front and back exterior. There is sat until I could figure out the rest.

Then I watched a tutorial on making a junk journal, and lo and behold at the end, she taught how to sew individual signatures to a hard cover using the pamphlet stitch (with one modification. So here it is!

My repurposed hard cover

three signatures

inside back cover, collaged

I'm excited. I bought a hard cover book for a dollar today, it's a bit thicker so next time I'll make 4 or 5 signatures. The cover is plain red so when I collage and paint it I will not have to compete with an underlying design that is already there.

Anyway, success!

Cucumber casserole?!

This was a fantastically perfect weekend from start to finish.

Friday evening was warm and bright, and I'd come home to a clean kitchen and tidy house. I love it when I keep things up during the week.

Saturday was rainy and drizzly but that is just fine for when you want to write and study and take a nap, which is what I did. I made cream of mushroom soup also, but I've never mastered that particular soup and it always comes out very strong. But I eat it anyway, despite the pungency of the mushrooms. I cut up a cantaloupe and enjoyed the zing, along with some lavender tea. I started watching the TV show The Flash. It was better than I expected. I like the innocent, real life but slightly off center cartoon feel to it, and I enjoyed the action sequences because they are without blood and are interesting. And the science, discussions going from real to almost real to could be real, all in an instant, lol.

I had a long nap, which I'd expected to have. On Friday at school was the quarterly reward party for all students who achieved a high benchmark of good behavior. We got inflatables and each grade had a solid hour to clamber up and scream down. But what that meant for us para-pros is that we stand at each entrance and exit of the inflatables cheering the kids and keeping an eye on safety. Standing in the sun for hours on uneven ground always does a number on my back and yesterday was no exception. It sapped my strength, but it was well worth it to see kids just having fun and being rewarded for their efforts.

Around 8pm a friend brought over the Bountiful Basket I'd bought, she was sweet to pick it up for me. It contained butter lettuce, cantaloupe, honeydew, what seemed like 4lb of grapes (sweet and tangy!) tomatoes, onions, kale, cukes, apples, bananas, plums, and more. I washed it all and looked up some recipes. I don't favor cukes but I found a recipe to use up three of them, cucumber casserole. I decided to make kale chips and cuke casserole on Sunday. In the recipe where they say add wheat germ, I substituted quinoa.

Sunday dawned bright and warm. October in GA is simply spectacular. No humidity, bright sun that still has strength to warm, and clear skies. Temps usually range from low to mid 70s and nights around mid 50s. Perfect. The birds were chirping all day long, and it was a delight to listen to them.

I did make the cuke casserole and kale chips, along with marinated grilled tofu and tuna salad with grapes. Netflix has added one season of the Great British Baking Show and I am enjoying working my way through it. I hate baking myself but I like seeing their artistically created presentations and learning about baking even though I never do it myself. I love the GBBS because the music is nice. Unlike Masterchef which is like the Flight of the Valkyries - on steroids - every week. Also the contestants are nice and genuinely like each other. No sabotage, no snark, no snideness. The judges are gentle and encouraging while still being firm. Not the least reason, the show actually teaches something, which used to be the point of cooking shows. Remember, I grew up on Julia Child and Galloping Gourmet. Plus, it's pretty. The setting on that English estate is gorgeous. I like the hominess of the tent and the quaint rustic touches, not like the space age kitchens of American TV with 30 foot ceilings and imposing stainless steel everywhere.

I crafted as I watched the baking show. A few weeks ago at a second hand store/dented merchandise (like Mardens or Job Lot) I had found crafting stuff from Martha Steward and Artist Loft. I'd bought gilding papers and some paints. I decided to make a basic one-signature soft cover book and use some of the tissue paper and gilded leaf papers I'd bought. I never had used gilding sheets before but hey, I decided to just throw some on there and see what happens. Here is the result, not finished, but 80% done. I'll wait for the book to dry and be pressed, then I will add end papers on the inside and a bead to the thread.

In this first photo of the cover, I laid down black and white tissue paper with a design that looks antique newspaper. Then I'd printed a picture of a fir tree from the internet onto antique book paper torn out of a Spanish dictionary. Last I used the gold leaf the make a frame around the smaller fir tree paper.

Single pamphlet stitch. Here is a tutorial for a five-hole single pamphlet stitch but mine is even easier, a three-hole stitch.

I started on the outside ("start sewing where you want to end up") because I want to add a bead or feather to the outside of the book where the stitch's tail is. Cover is card stock, inside is whiteish artist paper.

Tomorrow is a work day but a teacher work day, no kids will be coming to school. We get to arrive half an hour later (you wouldn't believe how much of a different getting there at 7:45 is compared to 7:15, or maybe you would). The weather looks to be nice ahead, and after this relaxing weekend, which will continue with me reading my book to some instrumental piano music shortly, all seems well in Comerlandia.

Have a good week everyone!

Ephemera bonanza

All you scrapbookers, collage enthusiasts, and bookbinders, be jealous. Be very, very jealous. In the crafting world, I have received the equivalent to an inheritance.

A friend was cleaning out the family attic and received permission to take away all the paper goods. In the recent past during one clean-out, she already gave me a bucket of fabric with glorious colors and retro patterns. Some of it is delightfully funky, like the elephants. See photo below

Well the bonanza today is ephemera. She gave me a bag loaded full of wrapping papers, odd ephemera, and greeting cards ranging from modern back to 1960s. Here is a taste.

First the ephemera. They range from old stamps to 40s vintage valentine doo dads to vintage post cards to art from the cover of greeting cards from all eras.

Then there was a ton of wrapping papers of varying thicknesses and designs.

The pink baby elephants crack me up

Several of these papers remind of 1970s Ziggy. Remember Ziggy?

Sorry the yellow didn't come out well. It's really pretty

These are my top favorites. First the wide view, then close-ups

The flower one at the top left is like
the bedroom flower wall paper I had as a kid

When is this from?! Looks like the 1940s!

Flower power!

1960s, 1970s? I dunno but it's garishly funky

So precious! So vintage!

 I'd given away most of my papers and had not bought or searched for any more, these last 4 years. I was getting low but that was OK because I was not bookbinding nor collaging, never mind painting. But a few months ago I got the urge again. The Lord provided. Thanks to thoughtful people I have been fully-re-stocked. Now just for some time to actually enjoy my hobby. Oh, wait...

More bookbinding, several movie reviews

I wrote a few days ago that I'd made a book and some collages. The cover of the book is fabric.

When you glue something you start at the center of the piece, whether it is paper or fabric or leather or cardboard, whatever. And you work the glue into the item in outward strokes, applying some pressure so the glue seeps into its holes, nooks, and crannies. The items will stick better and more evenly if one takes care at this early juncture.

The problem with fabric is that as you press the glue to the edges and beyond, the threads at the edge come apart. The fabric looks like it needs a haircut trim.

I always think that something needs a border. The cover looked unfinished to me. So I added a border. This was a doo-dad that a friend had given me in a box of ephemera. (God bless friends cleaning out their attics!) The color matched and I liked how the circles picked up the circles in the fabric's pattern. I cut up the collages to make bookmarks, lol

I also made  this: it is a single signature, softcover small notebook with a collage on the front.

This is a multiple signature, hard cover with a spine, and a collage on the front.

I've been watching movies each evening. They were all excellent. It is such an advantage to have the internet these days, and I can look up reviews and rating of a film before investing time or money into it. And can switch it off after a few minutes if it's objectionable (Like the tv show satire of politics, Veep, starring Seinfeld alum Julia Louis-Dreyfus politics- CLICK!)

An Unfinished Life, 2005. Starring Jennifer Lopez, Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman. Movie blurb: "A down on her luck woman, desperate to provide care for her daughter, moves in with her father in-law from whom she is estranged. Through time, they learn to forgive each other and heal old wounds."

Beautiful scenery, great acting, understated and moving, nothing objectionable, some scenes of or references to domestic violence, necessary to the plot. One or two curses. Recommended.

The Butler, 2013. Forest Whittaker, Oprah Winfrey, Cuba Gooding Jr, Clarence Williams III, Robin Williams, John Cucack, Alan Rickman, Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Mariah Carey. Based on a  true story. Movie blurb: "As Cecil Gaines serves eight presidents during his tenure as a butler at the White House, the civil rights movement, Vietnam, and other major events affect this man's life, family, and American society."

Incredible acting, dramatic history, yet despite the thirty year sweep of a most turbulent time in America, a deeply emotional, personal, haunting movie. Nothing objectional, if you discount the racism and actual historical scenes of KKK firebombing kids on a bus...anyway, no terrible language, no nudity. N-word used in historical accuracy. Intimation of rape (off screen), drinking, smoking.

How To Steal A Million, 1966. Audrey Hepburn, Peter O'Toole. Movie blurb: "Romantic comedy about a woman who must steal a statue from a Paris museum to help conceal her father's art forgeries, and the man who helps her."

Two hours, two minutes long. Set in Paris the scenery couldn't be better, except the scenery fades into the background every time Audrey Hepburn appears. Luminous and compelling the woman simply was gorgeous. Her clothes are given by Givenchy, the cars are classic and incredible, and Peter O'Toole couldn't be more handsome and commanding. The story drags a bit in the third act, I skipped ahead 20 minutes with no loss. The Butler is actually ten minutes longer but feels 40 minutes shorter. Needless to say, there is nothing objectionable in the movie with regard to profanity, nudity, or adult situations, discounting the movie's premise, which is a life of crime.

Despicable Me, 2010. Animated. Voices of  Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Julie Andrews. Movie Blurb: "When a criminal mastermind uses a trio of orphan girls as pawns for a grand scheme, he finds their love is profoundly changing him for the better."

Yes it is funny and good and clean. Not even any double entendres that some animated filmmakers put in to keep the adults happy.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents, 1955, black and white. (TV anthology show). TV was clean in 1955. The FCC prohibited "obscene and indecent" material. It still does, but definitions have changed. In one of the early episodes in the 1955 season 1 of AHP, a married couple was depicted as sleeping in separate beds. The wife was later attacked in the episode but there were not even any bruises showing. The angle of the camera, music, and acting had to do the work of what today would simply be a garish visual.

Movie blurb: "Series of unrelated short stories covering elements of crime, horror, drama and comedy about people of different species committing murders, suicides, thefts and other sorts of crime caused by certain motivations; perceived or not."

Hitchcock was intelligent, and the language of his introductions and closing was brilliant. The writing in each episode is also brilliant. And I love the twists. It's an enjoyable 26 minutes.

It's the weekend for all of you who are not on vacation or don't work in education. So...happy weekend!

Hunting, Finding, Creating, Enjoying!

You can make a book out of anything! The Lubec Historical Society annual 4th of July Yard Sale was always great for an eclectic find or two. They always have great stuff at that yard sale, and the arrangement of the items adds to its charm. The workers put out boxes of stuff on the lawn. No attractive display designs, not too many tables, though there are a few. Just boxes put out right on the grass. Yay! You hunt, you browse, you never know what you will find. That year among other items, I found these 60s placemats. What struck me about them is that the fabric was thick. Towels, blankets, placemats these days are not plush. They are thin. These, though were thick as anything and felt pretty good to the touch.

The other thing that struck me was the daisy. When I was 8, in 1968, I begged my mother to allow me to pick out my own wallpaper for my bedroom. We lived in a small, 100-year-old Cape Cod style home and my bedroom was upstairs, under the eaves. The roofline came down to within 3 feet of the floor. Being a kid that is exactly where I put my bed. It felt like a fort. The wallpaper my mother reluctantly allowed me to choose was garish yellow 60's daisies. Flower power, you know? The wallpaper color also included orange. Lots of it. It was bright. The daisies were huge, their petals extending out inches and inches from the nucleus. As I drifted off to sleep. I'd reach up my hand and trace their outlines. The ceiling being so close, and the daisies so bright and cheery, I fell asleep a happy girl. This daisy on the placemat is very similar, if not as blindingly bright.

Here, the front cover is partially turned so you can see the inside cover page.

The binding was a simple one-signature pamphlet stitch.

Here is a closeup of the pamphlet stitch

I had wonderful 8 1/2 by 11 legal sized paper, which worked perfectly for a one-signature book.
A pamphlet stitch is a simple, single thread so you cannot make too heavy of a signature (bundle or set of pages) or the thread will not hold the whole book together! It is also wise to match the amount of paper and each pages's weight to the cover material. Once, I made a handmade book using cardstock pages and tissue paper cover. Duh.

And, as I was exposing the center spine inside page with the tied signature thread (which I deliberately left long) and readying the camera for the photo, my cat who has THREAD RADAR at 4000 paces clued in. STRIIIINNNNGGGG! AAARGH! ATTACK! sigh

Happy book making! You can make a book out of anything. Even a placemat!