I felt I needed a book dedicated to my urban homesteading notes, which have become prolific lately. I decided to make a simple book. One of my past crafty stages involved bookmaking; a college photography instructor turned me on to this art as a way to display photos. On a shoestring budget, I managed to gather most of the needed supplies including a bone folder, awl, and binding thread. My interest gradually died off, probably for lack of time. A couple years ago I took a bookbinding class at the Bay View Book Arts Gallery (BVBAG) housed in the old Hide House complex. Since then I've been keeping a box of scrap paper in my craft corner. I save everything from the vellum envelopes they put your stamps in at the P.O. to beautiful hand drawn covers from seed catalogs and interesting images from magazines. My homesteading book's cover is made from an artful local organic flour bag (I knew I'd saved it for something), the inside cover is an R.H. Shumway's seed catalog cover, and I have tucked in other pocketed pages like a tiny brown paper sack from buying screws at the hardware store. I alternated lined paper and sketch paper so that I can make notes as well as draw pictures. I bound the book with a beautiful twig I just clipped from our cherry tree and a small rubberband that only shows on the back of the book. It's not permanently bound so I can add pages later as I get inspired.
I felt I needed a book dedicated to my urban homesteading notes, which have become prolific lately. I decided to make a simple book. One of my past crafty stages involved bookmaking; a college photography instructor turned me on to this art as a way to display photos. On a shoestring budget, I managed to gather most of the needed supplies including a bone folder, awl, and binding thread. My interest gradually died off, probably for lack of time. A couple years ago I took a bookbinding class at the Bay View Book Arts Gallery (BVBAG) housed in the old Hide House complex. Since then I've been keeping a box of scrap paper in my craft corner. I save everything from the vellum envelopes they put your stamps in at the P.O. to beautiful hand drawn covers from seed catalogs and interesting images from magazines. My homesteading book's cover is made from an artful local organic flour bag (I knew I'd saved it for something), the inside cover is an R.H. Shumway's seed catalog cover, and I have tucked in other pocketed pages like a tiny brown paper sack from buying screws at the hardware store. I alternated lined paper and sketch paper so that I can make notes as well as draw pictures. I bound the book with a beautiful twig I just clipped from our cherry tree and a small rubberband that only shows on the back of the book. It's not permanently bound so I can add pages later as I get inspired.
No comments:
Post a Comment