Winter Creative Recycling Project-Prayer Flags

 

Creative Recycling! Plastic bags are not as plentiful in Newburyport as they once were but if you have some around, you might want to make prayer flags. I made the cord by tying together narrow strips cut from plastic bags and stapled the flags around them. This photo is from 11 years ago. When I first started teaching simple bookmaking (30+ years ago), a few participants (adults) said that their books would never be as nice as mine because they couldn't do calligraphy. So I stopped using using calligraphy tools and styles in any lettering I did. My goal in all the projects I share for making is to have them be accessible and barrier-free in every way I can think of.

Bookmaking with Children: Why Use Recycled Materials?

 

From makingbooks.com:

I like to use recycled, or more accurately repurposed, materials in my workshops and at home. I use brown paper grocery bags, cereal boxes, and used paper that has writing on only one side. I made the change to be more respectful of the environment and reduce consumption but the benefits go way beyond that.

 

We live in an instant culture filled with manufactured objects. It is not the children's fault that they expect their paper perfect and think nothing of asking for a new piece when theirs has a wrinkle. Using grocery bags, cereal boxes, or paper that they have used before makes them aware of the paper they consume.

 

And there are other positive effects as well. When they start by cutting a paper bag, the paper is already uneven so it takes all the burden of precision away. I find it lightens the spirit of the whole process. In addition to consuming less paper, they learn to look creatively at the things they discard. 

Making books with repurposed materials has a different aesthetic. Because we don't start with plain paper, there are often traces of its former life showing. I feel this brings life and vitality to the finished book. 

Handmade Books For A Healthy Planet Spcial Offer

I will continue to respond to these times through my art, but I think the most helpful thing I can do is reconnect with my role as a teacher of making books with children. I'm starting with a SPECIAL OFFER for my 2010 book, Handmade Books For A Healthy Planet: Sixteen Earth-Friendly Projects From Around The World. It’s a how-to book with a purpose—to promote cultural understanding and environmental awareness through bookmaking. Buy one copy ($20 shipping included) and I will send another copy to a teacher, parent, grandparent, etc. of your choice.  It is a limited offer so if you interested, I suggest acting sooner than later. Information here.

Advent Calendar of Cards Day 16 (2009)

The year I switched to using recycled materials in my bookmaking workshops in schools, I decided to make an environmentally friendly card. The cards were printed on letter size copy paper from the recycle bin that already had writing on one side. I also made all the envelopes from recycled paper.

A Book to Make for Earth Day

A lot of the book samples I made when I was working with children don't translate into books for adults to make for themselves. I think this one does. The accordion is made from a front or back panel of a brown grocery bag folded in half like a hot dog. There are directions for folding a four page accordion book at makingbooks.com. Because the folded paper gave it thickness, I didn't bother adding a cover. Lately I prefer reading paperbacks (larger format not the smaller mass market size) and am appreciating handmade books without hard covers as well. The book was inspired by the children's book (again not just for children), Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning Message by Chief Jake Swamp.

First Day of Christmas

Here's my Christmas card from my daughter. I love its elegance and simplicity and the fact that she made it for me. I love that the little girl who spent so much time with me in the studio is now an adult who still knows her way around paper and the collage box and the beauty of the handmade. 

Over the past year I have realized that teaching is as important to me as doing my work. When I first started teaching in schools, I had the idea that when I "retired,"  I would concentrate solely on my art. It hasn't worked out that way. Teaching and sharing are as much a part of me as my art. I have done some Book-Play workshops for adults in the past few years and plan to put more effort into developing the program and one on making small keepsake editions for poets and writers. So I love the opportunity to go into teacher mode and say a few things about this card. One is that everyone should have a collage box with interesting bits of paper. Two is that there is beauty in simplicity. And three is that a dark background can be a design element in itself and bring together what is in the foreground.

I've been posting the 12 Days of Christmas since 2009. You can revisit past 12 Days here. 

Studio Sunday-Recycled May Book and Basket

It's a Tea Forté May Day. A friend was given a box of Tea Forté teas. She passed the herbal ones and the box along to me. I used the box for my May basket and made a book with the tea bag boxes. I used pictures of hellebores cut from a White Flower farm catalog on the pages. A recycled May!

Valentine Count Up-Recycled Valentine

As you know, I am a big fan of recycling. Here is a valentine message recycled from my 2014 new year image—Valentine on a piece of the egg shell, a heart from yesterday's visit to Paper Source, and the beans and roses from the new year.

Book Arts Tuesday-Handmade Books For A Healthy Planet Giveaway

Teachers here in New England are savoring these last days of August before the school year starts. Teachers in other parts of the country are already back in the classroom. In honor of all the good work they do, here's a giveaway for Handmade Books for a Healthy Planet: Sixteen Earth-Friendly Projects From Around the World.

Handmade Books For A Healthy Planet is a how-to book with a purpose. With fascinating facts about the history of books and illustrated step-by-step directions, the sixteen earth-friendly projects, including a Wish Scroll from Ethiopia, a Medieval Book of Hours and a Book of Haiku from Japan, promote cultural understanding and environmental awareness.

Here's a Sampler of pages from Handmade Books For a Healthy Planet.

Leave a comment before midnight on Tuesday and be entered into a random drawing for a copy of the book. Make sure the comment contains your email address so that I can reach you.

To purchase a copy, go to Itasca Books.

Book Arts Tuesday-Book Forest in Berlin

I'd love to have one of these in my town. In Berlin, a non-profit educational institution for women working in the building enterprise called the Baufachfrau created the "Book Forest" in 2008. The project is part of the BookCrossing, a book swap club which brings free books to public spaces around the globe.

Read more about the Book Forest and see photos of its installation and learn how to take part in a BookCrossing Swap at Twisted Sifter. Find out more about Baufachfrau here.

Calling the Quiet Bookmaking Workshop

Calling the Quiet: Making Books for Meditation and Reflection
December 12, 9:30-3:30
Rolling Ridge Retreat Center, North Andover, MA

This workshop was originally scheduled in October but was postponed because of the storm. If you're in the area and have the time, it should be a restful and rewarding day.

Making books combines the calm and comfort of handwork with the opportunity for reflection. Using recycled materials, we'll make five simple books on a variety of themes and a box to hold them. No art experience or creative confidence is needed; this workshop is truly for everyone.

Register online or by calling the office, 978.682.8815.

30 Years of the CD

On NPR this morning—The CD, at 30, is Feeling Its Age:

Today marks the 30th anniversary of a musical format many of us grew up with: the compact disc. It's been three decades since the first CD went on sale in Japan. The shiny discs came to dominate music industry sales, but their popularity has faded in the digital age they helped unleash. The CD is just the latest musical format to rise and fall in roughly the same 30-year cycle.

Compact discs had been pressed before 1982, but the first CD to officially go on sale was Billy Joel's 52nd Street.

Should you be looking for a use for the CDs you are no longer using, you can make a version of a palm leaf book as pictured above: CDs for pages, a strip of plastic rice cake bag for cord, and milk caps and bread closures instead of beads.

Poetry Month-A William Blake Excerpt

Several weeks ago my daughter was given a collection of scarves, earrings, and pins which we enjoyed sorting through—finding ones we liked, ones that would make good gifts, and ones to pass along to a local charity shop. And of course I am always looking at everything as possible material for handmade books. I got the idea that some of the post and hanging earrings would work as the binding of the fan books. Today I got around to making a sample as I prepare for the Fan Book Gathering of Gifts Workshop on Saturday.

The pages of the book were cut to match the shape of the earring from cereal boxes and covered first with images from a catalog and then with tracing vellum with the words of a poem excerpt by William Blake written with a flair marker. The backs were covered with brown grocery bag paper. Holes were punched with a punch that makes tiny holes and the pages threaded onto the earring.

Who Am I? Book for Women's History Month

Ideas for bookmaking projects come to me in all sorts of places. Last month I was at a talk by Tuskegee Airman James A. Sheppard at the Newburyport Public Library. He started by describing the history of African American aviation before World war II and showed a photo of the first licensed black aviator in the US—a woman named Bessie Coleman. I immediately knew she would be a perfect subject for March's bookmaking project in celebration of Women's History Month.

Here is a Who Am I? Book about her. This is a simplified version of the book I usually make with a grocery bag and a cereal box panel (directions here). For this one I used two sheets of used copy paper with writing on one side only.

You Will Need:

2 sheets used copy paper with writing on one side only
Piece of yarn about an arm's length long
Bead
Glue stick
Scrap paper
Hole punch

Make the Book:

Fold one of the pieces of paper in half the long way like a hot dog with the writing on the inside.

2. Open the paper, put glue on one half, close and smooth to help the glue adhere.

3. Repeat with the second piece of paper.

4. Place one folded piece so that it is tall in front of you. Place the second piece on top to form a large plus sign.

5. Take the bottom of the tall paper and fold it up over the sideways one.

6. Take the right side of the sideways paper and fold it over the bottom you just folded up.

7. Do the same with the left side and the top.

8. Take the two piece of paper apart.

9. Put glue on the center of the tall rectangle, place the sideways piece on top, and smooth to help the glue adhere.

10. Fold the book up.

11. Punch a hole in the center of the lower edge of the top flap.

12. Fold the piece of yarn in half.

13. Insert the loop end into the hole.

14. Open the loop, put the ends of the yarn through the loop, and pull.

15. Thread both ends of the yarn through a bead (I find it easiest to fold a small loop and twist it before threading) and tie a knot with the bead inside. Tie a second knot to make it secure.

16. To close the book, wrap the yarn around the book and tuck the bead under the yarn.

BESSIE'S BOOK

I was able to find a lot of information about Bessie Coleman both online and in books. She's a popular subject for children's books. I love the one I have—Fly High! The Story of Bessie Coleman by Louise Borden and Mary Kay Kroeger, illustrated by Teresa Flavin—filled with both information and inspiration. Here's how the book closes:

Daughter...aunt...walker...reader...dreamer...thinker...
student...pilot...speaker...teacher.
Bessie Coleman was all of these.
Like her mother, Susan,
Bessie knew how to plant seeds.
Her work in schools and churches
was as important as her daring spins and loops in the sky.
Across the U.S.,
some of Bessie's young fans grew up to be pilots.
Many others would remember her courage,
her smile, and her words:
"You can do something, too.
Keep trying! Fly high!"


Here are some online resources:
bessiecoleman.com

centennialofflight.gov

rootsweb.ancestry.com (photos)

GIVEAWAY:
Join in the celebration of Women's History Month and share a link, a book, or other information about a woman in history to be entered into the giveaway. There will be a random number drawing for each of two books:

and

The drawing will close on Friday March 23 at midnight.