Scissors & Glue

Things I have been cutting up: magazines from the 50s (Better Living), papers from my 2nd and 3rd grade box, and current science and art magazines. I really like the images from the 50s though, too bad I only had five magazines. My room is a mess again. Didn't take long. :P

Don't know exactly what I'll use any of the cutout images for yet. Just building up a stock of things to use should I want them, I suppose. Also, I found a bunch more fabric that would look awesome covering books. There is SO much fabric around! In the garage, in the barn, in my relatives' attics and basements - and I'm usually able to find things that are relatively old and sort of dated-looking, which I love. This latest fabric I found is a deep blue and rusty brown tie dye-looking fabric, with the dye-less areas being white. It probably looks a lot cooler than I'm describing it, it doesn't look like your run-of-the-mill tie-dye really. It's quite striking and almost African-looking. Anyway, I bought some board today to use for more hardcovers. I was using a bit of leftover board from a bookmaking class I took junior year, but that's all pretty much used up. The last of it went into the blue floral book in that last photo.

I really enjoy making these books, especially since I'm using cloth that isn't boring to cover them with. The only drawback is that I don't have an awl, which makes it a bit painful to put holes in the quires of paper (pages nested together). I use six sheets per quire, and shoving a sewing needle through them all six times with my bare hands gets irritating. Gnarly calluses, here I come! I think the normal number of sheets per quire is eight or twelve... but my poor fingers wouldn't do very well if I added another two or six layers of resistance. I gotta get an awl.