A Book a Day? What's Up With That?


Hi, and welcome to this year-long project. So what's this all about and how did it happen, you might ask. In mid 2007, artist Noah Scalin decided to make a skull out of anything he could find, every day for a year. It stretched him in ways he never imagined, as an artist, a writer and a person. His experience turned into a blog that went viral, and then a book.

Others have picked up on the idea: 365 Hearts, 365 Masks, 365 Bears drawn on a cellphone, 365 paper napkin mustaches.
I wanted to play, too, and I chose books. I love books, I know a bit about making books (thanks to my talented book-maker sister, Marilyn Worrix), and they're broad enough in definition to give me a lot of creative leeway.

The whole point is not really the books. The idea is to stretch myself in many ways as an artist and a person, to set up a discipline, stick with it and see what that teaches me.

I hope you'll join with me and follow along on the journey chronicled here, and let me know what you think.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Book 175 - Recycled Children's Book/Journal - Pooh

Here's another upcycled children's book as a blank journal. I love this little Pooh book, "Christopher Robin Leads an Expotition." As with yesterday's book, I carefully removed the book block and cut the book in half down the center of the spine. I was not able to save enough of the spine paper to fold over the edge, so I covered the edges with small strips of dark blue book cloth. I was able to keep the original Pooh board liners.

I cut beige text paper to size, stacked it up, drilled holes and stitched it with a loose stab sewn binding. Like with yesterday's book, this is not the perfect stitch for this kind of book. I discovered it works much better with a soft cover book that is also not this thick. The book does not open perfectly flat and the pages still tend to shift just a bit. It looks like I'll have to go back to a coptic binding for these recycled book covers journals.

Still, it's a cute book, a nice size and will make someone a nice journal.





1 comment:

  1. I suppose a coptic stitch would work a lot better with thicker hard book covers. These children's books are a great idea, tho! :)

    ReplyDelete