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.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Books 223-226 - Mini "Scrap" Books from Wallpaper - Butterfly Binding

Here's a collection of hand-bound mini-journals I call "scrap" books because they are made entirely from scraps. They measure 3 1/2"x4 1/2".

A couple of days ago, I picked up a free small vinyl wallpaper sample book from a local paint store. That became my starting point. I trimmed each sample to size and glued it to a piece of decorative lining paper. I then added a second piece of decorative paper at the spine. From paper scrap, I folded 16 sheets into two signatures, for a total of 32 pages (64 w/ both sides).  I stitched each little hand-bound mini-journal with a butterfly stitch -- like a pamphlet stitch with five holes. I left a tail on the thread at the top of the spine and added a pretty bead to coordinate with the colors of each book.

I made this a group of books because I wanted to experiment with some production techniques and see how long it took me to make each book. It worked out to just under 30 minutes each. If I were making more of them and set up a real production line, I could probably get that down to 20 minutes or even less.

If I can make them quickly enough and price them right, I think these little mini-journals will be salable. I'll probably make some more.











2 comments:

  1. These are really cute! I love your recycling inspirations. :)

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  2. these are excellent...they'd be great for a purse-sized sketchbook, too.

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