Book with no Purpose

Yet again I have been a while getting back to you all.  I seem to be busier than ever these days.

I am looking back at a project that I did several years ago and wondering if I could create something similar again?  I started making this book purely by chance when I was looking though some of my scraps of paper.    I had an idea to store the scraps by colour rather than just in a box all randomly.  I am really a neat-freak at heart and I love sorting things, putting things in order, labeling things, listing things.  Anyway, I soon built up a section with the colours you see in this book and suddenly it all made sense.

Inside showing the stamping down the spine.

I took a simple board book and stripped it of its glossy paper to reveal the grey board underneath.  I pick up these books from junk shops and find them equally as good as the more expensive blank books you get from craft suppliers.  I find that I am less worried about the final result if I re-use cheap purchases rather than brand new alterable items, and anyway, recycling is always better. In this case I cut the book away from the spine to give me individual boards but sometimes you can leave the book intact.

So once the book had been stripped, I set about recovering the pages with a background paper. I used a CD of printable images which happened to have a matching rubber stamp, purchased from the company run by Glenda Waterworth. I selected a colour and theme that tied all the scraps together.  While this was drying I spent a little while on my computer writing phrases in a suitable font and printed them off onto pieces of the same paper I had covered the pages in.

When the covered boards were dry I put them together so that it functioned like a book, turning each board to reveal the left and right sides to make sure the opposing pages were reasonably well matched.  I then used the stamp and stamped images on the boards using black ink.  I stamped on the edges and down what would be the spine going over from one page to the other so that the pages formed a pair.

Next I took all the images and phrases and mounted them up on some black card to give them a border.  This means that they stand out from the background of the page.  Once I had enough (and trust me you  can never have enough) I started arranging the images and phrases onto the pages.

Front Piece showing the binding.

Once I was 100% happy with the layout I glued the pieces in place.  I used a pile of books to weigh down the boards to keep them flat and to make sure the scraps stuck flat and firmly. When they were fully dry, I punched holes in them so that I could bind them together to make the book again.  I used a leather thong and a coffee stirrer  to bind the book.

It was then just a case of going through the book page by page and adding the odd extra feature such as images of bees and butterflies.  I also felt that the images and phrases needed 'attaching' to the pages so I drew little dots in the corners to simulate brads.  That is one thing that I will say about these type of books, you need to keep your embellishments  fairly flat.  Bulky items like brads make the pages uneven and lumpy.

The book serves no particular purpose - my husband is always wondering what my creations are 'for'.  I don't think he gets art other than paintings which quite clearly are meant to be hung on walls to break up the blandness of the wall and sculpture which is placed in a park or garden and is designed for people to walk around. Bless him.  

So, I expect I shall be going into my room later today to sort something out and maybe, who knows, I might get inspired to create another 'book with no purpose'.

Happy days my friends. x x x

Kim