Book 296 - Fuji Book - A Recycled Camera Box Journal - Modified Buttonhole Stitch Binding

I suppose as long as I am co-owner of this store, I will forever be making books from recycled packaging. It's everywhere I look.

Today's book is a little blank book/journal made from the package for a Fuji one-time-use camera. We used to sell a lot of these. Of course, we also used to sell a lot of film, and now I can't remember the last time we sold a roll of film. Everyone s gone digital now--or they've got a phone with a camera. We only sell these disposable cameras when someone has forgotten their camera or phone or it's broken.


For this book, I cut the box down and glued the spine so it's double and very strong. I then cut out the center section of the spine. The binding is a modified buttonhole stitch, really easy to do once you get the concept. There are eight signatures of pale pea green text-weight paper stitched with white linen thread.

It's a pretty b sic little book, but I'll take it.

Books 276 & 277 - Grand Canyon Suite - Recycled Beer Box Books/Journals - Single-Needle Coptic Binding

Ah... more recycled packaging books, and very cool packaging it is.

We recently started selling beer in our store, and one of the beers we carry is from a small brewery in Williams, Arizona, called Grand Canyon Brewery. Both the cans and the boxes they come in have great graphics, so of course the cases screamed "Books!" at me.

Here are two journals from the same case of beer. The first is a long, narrow book. I used one side of the case and cut it in half lengthwise to balance the graphic in an attractive way. I backed the two pieces with heavy brown card stock for added stiffness and strength and punched holes for the stitching stations for a coptic binding.

I wanted something on the pages for added interest, so I found a nice photo of the Grand Canyon, sized it and reduced the opacity so it would print very faintly, then printed enough pages for six signatures. I trimmed the pages, folded them into signatures and punched the holes for the stitching stations. The book is bound with beige linen thread in a single-needle coptic stitch or chain stitch binding. When you open the book, the faintly printed image of the Grand Canyon is on the left side and the right side is blank for writing.

The graphics are what make this book.

The second book in this series was made from the top part of the box, the one with shaped cutouts that make a sort of handle to make the case easier to carry. Again, I backed the cardboard with heavy card stock, this time in a canvas-textured moss green. With an Xacto knife, I carefully cut away the card stock from the hand holes and creased the cover at the center of the cut-outs for the spine.

I folded ten signatures of text paper trimmed to the size of the book and stitched them to the spine with a modified button-hole stitch from Alisa Golden's book. The stitching was done with linen thread in a goldenrod color.

To close the book, I added a length of braided linen thread and a brass button for it to wrap around.