The book artist's version of a scrap quilt

I sometimes wad up a piece of scrap paper and toss it out the door of my studio so the cats will scamper after it (and then I shut the door). I don't think that's a legitimate form of reuse, though.

I really could put more stuff in the recycling bin. It's not that I throw too much away, it's that I hold onto small items and scraps because I'm too certain they can be repurposed in some way. And it's often true, as long as I'm able to make the time to use them.

Take paper scraps and trimmings, for example.

When I make a journal using a vintage book for the cover, I'm repurposing the book cover (yay), and using recycled paper with a high post-consumer content for the pages (yay again). But to fit the pages to the cover (which is kind of backwards, a book conservationist recently pointed out), I end up trimming away strips of my perfectly lovely paper, which is a bit thicker/heavier than most journal and notebook paper at 70lb (most notebook paper is 50lb).

Some recently constructed journals and their remnants

And I hate to just toss those trimmings, which are often 2.5–3" wide, into the recycling when I could reuse them to make mini journals and notebooks.

A couple of mini journals made from scraps -- and the covers are from Yorkshire tea boxes

In addition, like any paper crafter, I have accumulated a lot of paper of various weights and patterns, often purchased from scrapbooking shops (scrapbooking per se doesn't really appeal to me, but I really like a lot of the papers and other materials involved). I have used the decorative scrapbooking paper to make sleeves for my calendar cards (2018 will be available late October). Those paper sleeves are sealed and reinforced with packing tape.

My 2015 Useful Calendar was the last one that was trading card size

A couple of years ago, I changed the size of my calendar cards from trading card size (2.5" x 3.5") to 1/8 of a standard letter size page (2.75" x 4.25"). That change ended wasteful trimming (the scraps were too small to use for anything else), while also saving me a little time in production and giving me a little more space for content. Score two for zero waste. Or would that be three?

But that left me with a lot of sturdy little tape-laminated paper pockets that I had made already and could no longer use for my calendars.

Leftover calendar card sleeves

So I'm making little notebooks to fit into the pockets. And to satisfy my urge to make something artful and unique, rather than the same thing again and again, each mini notebook is ornamented with beads and charms on the spine (which also makes for a convenient handle for pulling them out of the sleeve), and their covers are collaged with assorted scraps that I just couldn't quite toss into the recycling yet because they're too pretty or interesting. Sometimes that includes bits of those book pages, as well as trimmings from the decorative papers used to make the sleeves.

Two mini notebooks with their coordinating sleeves

I've also repurposed whole text blocks that I removed from old books in order to use the covers, glued the edges together and cut them into simple shapes, which I then collaged with more scraps to make little stand-alone art objects of solid paper.

Stacks of book innards, and a few paper block collages made from them.

Yeah, it's kind of an obsession. But in my defense, I do end up tossing some of my paper scraps into the recycling. I put most of them into a large paper bag and staple it shut, because by the time I'm really done with the scraps, what's left is pretty small and needs to be bagged like shredded paper so it doesn't gum up the recycling machines. But by that time, I feel pretty satisfied that I've gotten a decent amount of reuse from those old books and other scraps of paper.

More mini notebooks with their sleeves

Come see my scrap paper notebooks, vintage book journals, and paper block art pieces during the LoLa art crawl, Sept. 16–17, at site 62, Bob Schmitt's Laughing Waters Studio, on Minnehaha Parkway.

More new journals from old books — AND here comes the LoLa art crawl!

The annual LoLa art crawl is coming up in about a month and I need to get serious about making journals to build up my inventory!

LoLa stands for League of Longfellow Artists, which is a volunteer-run neighborhood arts group that's been going around this South Minneapolis neighborhood every year for nine (9!) years now. I'll be setting up shop at the adorable little yellow cottage that is the home studio of LoLa cofounder Bob Schmitt, Laughing Waters Studio.

This is all happening September 16–17, by the way.

So here's a look at a journal I recently completed, when I wasn't feeling quite so rushed so I took some pictures along the way which I won't be doing anymore for a while now.

I started with a vintage book with a pretty cover that I picked up at a Duluth shop called Chester Creek Books and Antiques. It was only a dollar and the pages were brittle and yellowed, so I figured it was OK to take it apart and give the cover a new life.

I've written before about how I enjoy taking apart old books to examine how they were made, kind of like a kid taking apart an old alarm clock or something (when my daughter was in preschool, the teacher asked for donations of such things and then had these 4-year-olds take them apart; one parent later remarked that her child knew the difference between a Philips and a flathead screwdriver after that). OK, that was a bit of a digression; back to the book.

I made an interesting discovery when I started taking this book apart, and that was that they had repurposed some other printed matter when constructing the spine. Today we talk a lot about reusing and repurposing materials, but in past decades they did that sort of thing as a matter of course. The blue paper is attached to the spine of the cover, and the teal scrap is glued over the spine of the text block, covering the stitching. 

I saved those scraps because I thought it would be cool to reuse them again in a collage. And I suppose it would have been really cool to use them in the journal I made from this book, but I set them aside to use later.

This book did not have headbands, which I wrote about in the above linked blog post (or just click here instead). Those are often another example where materials were repurposed, at least in mass-produced books. Traditional headbands in fine bookmaking are handstitched, but bookbinders in the late 19th and early 20th century would make them from scraps of shirt fabric, a practice I have also employed. (Actually, I use various cotton fabric scraps, including some from old shirts.)

In the above photo, you see the blank text block I made to fill the new journal, next to the original text block. The original text block appears to have been sewn with a kind of chain stitch, then was rounded, then coated with glue (probably a type of rubber cement), and then the strip of paper was pasted over that.

My assembly is a little different. First, I used a running stitch with the signatures interlaced together. 

Instead of rounding the spine, I keep it flat so that the journal will lay open more easily for writing in. I brushed on a synthetic flexible glue known as PVA that's acid-free, so it won't yellow or become brittle. 

Next I glued on the headbands to protect the edges (top and bottom), and attached a ribbon page marker with more PVA. Finally, I attached end papers with a thin strip of glue and then wrapped linen tape around the spine in two places, which takes the place of the paper used in this book, or the webbing often used in traditional fine bookbinding. 

Here's a view showing the end papers that I glued to each side of the text block. This hand-marbled paper (made by Sally Power) will be attached to the cover boards, over the original endpaper shown on the inside of the back cover.

Setting aside the text block for the moment, I made a new spine for the cover boards, reusing my own paper scrap from an old calendar I made a few years ago. Since it's my own scrap, I know that it's acid-free paper and won't get brittle. The cloth covering the spine is a black linen tape, the same type as the white tape used to reinforce the text block. 

And here's the finished journal. Come see it in person during LoLa.