CD Books

I went to a workshop on how to make books from CDs last weekend. Yes, ordinary CDs that play music. Of course we only used rejected CDs. I have seen these books made and was always fascinated by them. I mentioned to my friend Tricia whose orginally taught me book making that I would like to know how to make them. She told me she could show me how one day when we are on duty at the Cottage in Wattle Park. That one day was last Sunday, and we had lots of fun creating these little babies. It was not easy, but I was on a roll and made a few of them. They will be handy as gifts.

Here they are, the whole bunch of them. I was lucky to have saved some little CDs amongst my collections of recycled materials. I used Japanese handmade papers that DS brought back for me from Japan for the covers and embelished them with charms, beads and tassles.

A close up of the very first one I made.

These are the ones Sue and I made in the workshop.

Here is Sue concentrating on where and how to assemble the book. Notice the shelf behind Sue? Wattle Park Cottage house Basket Makers of Victoria and it is also a gallery that is open to the public on Wednesday and Sunday. I am a member of BOV and very often I am on duty there on Sunday. There are some cute baskets on display at the cottage and what you see in the picture is only small number of them. There is another room across the hall full of many creative baskets. Take a look at their website to read more about BOV.

Book Workshop for Robin

It was an honored to have Robin Wagner in my book workshop on Sunday. Robin is visiting Australia to attend a conference. She managed to find the time to attend my book workshop. I met Robin last year when she visited my university. We got talking and I told her that one of my passtimes is making handmade books using recycled materials. Robin is a librarian and every librarian loves anything to do with papers and books. Unfortunately, Robin was due to return to the USA when I met her. We kept in touch and I promised her that I will teach her book making next time she is here. So here she is, sitting at my house learning the age old art of Coptic binding.

Here is Robin going through the box of dust jackets looking for a perfect one. It was not an easy task to choose just the right one for her first handmade book!

Here she is putting the last Coptic stitch on her book. She was hard at work all day trying to remember and learn what I taught her. It was not an easy task, but Robin is a sewer so she caught on very quickly and soon she was on her way to finishing her very first handmade book.

I had invited my students from my Wednesday book workshop to join us for the day too. Dennis on the left and Ayako at the top of the photo. Both of them kindly brought a plate to share for lunch. I made pumpkin soup and bread rolls for them. We all had an enjoyable day.

This is the book I made on Sunday using dust jacket with the cute little picture of a dog on a pink chair. I just love the way this dogie lying there without a worry in the world. I finished it in time to take for show and tell at the Wednesday workshop.

Altered Books

I know I have not been making any books lately, but I do have some books that I should be showing on this blog. One of them I was so lucky to receive for my birthday last year from my friend Lynette.

This book looks like an ordinary book on the outside. Yes it was once a book titled 'Australian Short Stories'. With Lynette's creative thinking she turned this book into a sewing caddy. Lynette knows that I am a collector of sewing gadgets and this one is a unique one that I was lucky to receive.

In 2008 our sewing group SBOV (Sewing Basket of Victoria) had a birthday challenge. This book was my birthday challenge that Lynette made for me. Lynette cut out some of the pages from the book and lined it with fabric and paper. She went over it with clear varnish to seal it. On the top part of the book she decorated the scissors and nested them there nicely. On the lower part of the book she made me a needle holder that fitted there neatly.

Little Golden Books are all time favorites of my daughter. In her collection there were some Barbie books she used to read. I have kept all of my children books, and with my book making skills I turned this Barbie book into a Journal. I inserted some of the original pages amongst the blank pages of the journal. I am delighted to give new life to an old classic book.

Books from Recycled Objects

I might not have mentioned before that all handmade books on this blog are made from recycled material. What inspired me to make handmade books was working in a library. In my workplace there are many recyclable materials such as paper, cardboard, discarded dust jackets and even discarded books. I am now teaching some of my colleagues how to create handmade books too. We meet every Wednesday during our lunch break. There are five of us, but as from tomorrow two more will join the group.

A book made from a Vita-Weat box. There are endless types of product boxes I can use for book making. For this book, I used recycled photocopy paper as signatures. I do not cut my paper, but tear them using a metal ruler instead. This is a simple book using long stitch binding method.

Everyone at my work knows that I recycle things. I often return to my desk to find various objects left for me by my colleagues. The green velvet coated paper I used to cover this book was given to me by my friend Sophia. She told me it was a wrapper from a bar of soap. She thought that I could use it for something. I made this book and gave it back to Sophia on her birthday. I used light green recycled paper for the signatures.

This is one of my earlier books. The cover came from a Japanese book box that was discarded. I rescued it from a card board trolley. The signatures were brown packing papers. When I finished it, I thought it needed something else to give it a lift. I had this old button lying around for ages and it was a perfect thing for this book.

MIXED MEDIA AND CREATIVE BOOKS

I have not been posting since last week. The reason is that Winter is almost upon us here in Australia and when I get home from work, it is too dark to take any photos. I prefer not to use a flash when I take photos for my blogs. Natural light is much better. I am a bit fussy with my blog photos. Today I have a chance to take some photos under natural light.

Stacks of books always looks great. For someone who works in a library you would think I would have had enough of books. Actually am not bored with them at all. I love working with them.

The cover for this journal made using mixed media method. It has layers and layers of different fabrics. I then machine embroidered with free motion stitching and then went over it with hand embroidery and hand stitching. In the end, I made a blank book to fit inside. When I showed it at my book workshop on Wednesday I was told that it looks like something out of Harry Potter. Because I did not see any of Harry Potter I did not know from which particular bit of Harry Potter does this journal represent? Well, that was a compliment and I might have to see the next Harry Potter to find out...!

Collage paper is really fun too. Up until now I have been using dust jackets to cover books, but this time I used a few different dust jackets and collages over by machine. After that I made it into a book using Coptic stitch binding.

This book is made for ANZAC Day. I love the texture of print on cardboard. You can get very neat print on some of the cardboard boxes at my library. This one comes from an Australian Standing Orders publisher. It is only a small impression with their company name on it. I have another one with a typical Australia house on it. I am looking for something to make out of that.

On the inside it contains memorabilia of ANZAC Day for example, Anzac biscuit recipe, red poppy, message from Kamel Ataturk, apple tea package and some photos of Australia soldiers.

Memory book

LAST WEEK OF THE DISPLAY

Rags to Riches handmade books display has been on for the whole of April. This week is the last week of the display. At the beginning for the week we decided to rearrange the display one more time before it finished. All the vibrant colours of the books were all mixed together before. Every time I walked past the cabinet I kept seeing red, blue and green jumping out at me. Then I thought, what if we arrange them by colour? And that what we did. The end result was fantastic. I have noticed that more people have stopped by and looked at the display since.

Here is the close up of the red section. I can see Kumi's Mondrian book on the left. The red book I made for Steve is on the right. Snowman book that Kumi made out of molded plastic is next to the one with the green stripe by me. We have thrown in a few paper beads for decorations.

This is the green section. From the left is Dennis's hand embroidery journal then Ayako's recipe book. The Journal for a quilter and the other green books are mine.

This is the brown section. There are handmade cards by Cathrine Haboe-Ree. Her cards were made using handmade papers with leaves and feathers.

And here is the blue section with my Japanese lady book and Kumi's bag book. It is sad for the display to come to an end. To think that this is the first ever private display at the library. We could say that we have made history for the library! We are now working toward next year's display.

Read more books.

LIBRARY STAFF BULLETIN

In the article 'Around the traps' from the Library Staff Bulletin was the article about our Handmade books didplay with some photos from the open day. I have attached the article below: Click on the article to see the large image.


Books and more books

BOOKS FROM ENVELOPES

If you love paper and working in a library you are in paper heaven. I didn't know how to make books when I started working in the library 4 years ago. Because I love using recycled materials and re-purposing stuff I was constantly thinking of ways to use all the envelopes, cardboard, and dust jackets. I started making handmade books in early 2008 with my dear friend Tricia. She generously gave a few of us a beginner's workshop in book binding. I was hooked like a poor fish! Not long after that, my colleagues (who were librarians) saw my handmade books and asked me to teach them book making. We started meeting one hour a week during the lunch break. The result from our meetings is now in the display cabinet at Monash University library until the end of April 2009.










This cute cat book is made from internal mail envelopes torn in half and stitched on to the covers. The yellow handmade paper I bought in Nepal many years ago. The cat picture came from a painting. I made this book as a gift for my daughter Kit. She loves cats.











This is my favorite envelope; it came from a Beijing rare book publishing company. The picture is printed on the outside of an envelope and it comes in A4 size and standard envelope size. This book is bound with Coptic stitch using twine.

Books for life.

HANDMADE BOOKS

Here are some more of my handmade books in the Display at Monash University Library at the moment. The Display will be on until the end of April. The Display is well received by the library staff and students. Today we rearranged it just to give it a fresher look. We had extra books stacked at the side supported by book ends. Today we brought them forward and swapped them around.

I found the front cover of this combo book from the YMCA sale in Canberra a few months ago. It must have been designed at a key plate. The plate has 2 holes for screws to hold it in place and a large rectangular hole for a key. For signatures I am using handmade papers, soft brown papers and papers from used envelopes. I have not finished it yet, I wanted to keep adding more signatures to it to see how it will end.

The Journal of a Quilter is designed to be a journal of my complete quilts. I have not entered anything in it yet. I can't seem to mix my two crafts together at the moment.

This red concertina book is a travel journal. It has pockets for brochures and memorabilia from my travels. The fabric came from an upholstery sample. I embroidered over it with hand dyed threads and added beads to give the lines a lift.


This brown concertina book is a travel journal. It has pockets for brochures and memorabilia from my travels. The fabric came from an upholstery sample. I embroidered over it with hand dyed threads and added beads to give the lines a lift. I used this book for teaching sample to my students. They have now made some of their own.

Practice make perfect

PAPER MAKERS OF VICTORIA

I am a member of the Paper Makers of Victoria I am not a very active member and I don't make paper (not yet anyway). I have only been to their meetings a few times. I went today to take the brochure of the book display 'Rags to Riches' for them to publish in their next newsletter. They are very supportive of our display and a few said they would go and see the display.

Today the guest speaker was Amanda Degener the paper artist from the USA. She spoke to the group and showed the slides of her work. I was very impressed with her process. Amanda's paper is called CAVE PAPER. She had some paper with her for sale as well. I bought one called Walnut Red and another one called Green Crackle. They are beautiful and I don't know if I would be able to cut into them...! Amanda is such a nice lady. She is very friendly and down to earth. I asked if I could have a photo taken with her for my blog. She was very happy for me to do that.


I also took a whole bunch of dust jackets to share with the members of POV. They were very happy sifting through them and took want they wanted. I hope they will make something with them.

Enjoy