Book 327 & 328 - "Pooh Times Two" - Two Different Ways to Recycle Pooh Books - Codex & Coptic

My regular followers well know by now my penchant for recycling old books into new journals, especially children's books. This time I've taken on a couple of little Winnie the Pooh books from the 1970s but I've treated them differently.

The first journal/blank book, Christopher Robin Gives Pooh a Party, is a traditional cased-in codex book. A codex is what most people think of when they think "book." It's a hardcover book with a front, back and reinforced spine covered with the cover paper and the stitched book block glued into the prepared cover with end papers.

I stitched the signatures to a piece of mull (a kind of stiffened cheesecloth fabric used by bookmakers). This formed the "hinges" that could be glued under the end papers to hold the block in place.

For the endpapers, I cut illustrations from the original book, taped them together to make them double width, and glued them down over the mull hinges.

When closed, this little journal pools almost exactly like the original book did.

For the second Pooh journal, made from Kanga and Baby Roo Come to the Forest, I used my more usual single-needle coptic stitch binding. After removing the book block and slicing the spine, I removed the spine reinforcement, folded the cut edges back and glued then taped them down. I folded the signatures, punched holes for all the sewing stations and stitched the journal with purple waxed cotton thread.

I used light blue text paper to complement the colors on the cover. For the end papers, I again used illustrations from the original books.

I think either of these little Pooh journals would make a nice "My First Journal" for a young child who likes to write or draw.