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.
