Books on Books

Wonderful books can be created from things you find at thrift shops or items you might otherwise toss into the trash. This book by Terry Taylor, "Eco Books", is the perfect guide for turning reusable materials into such treasure. Everything from egg cartons to cassette tape cases to bar coasters are re-purposed into fun and useful books.

I was especially attracted to this project using game boards as covers.

Here I used pieces of a game board to make a coptic bound sketchbook journal. Coptic binding is an ancient method of creating a book with attractive stitching across an open spine. One of the advantages of using coptic binding is that the book you make will open flat. While Terry Taylor's book has directions for binding stitches in the appendix, I would recommend a more comprehensive guide for learning the coptic stitch.

The best source I have found for this and other open-spine bindings is Keith Smith's "Non-Adhesive Binding, Books Without Paste or Glue, Volume I"

It is especially good for those of us who are visual learners.

The drawings are clear and concise.

So, dig around your stash of found goodies and recycling bin for book-making materials. You will really feel good about creating treasure from trash!