School Holiday crafting

Over the past recent years I have been accumulating gleefully a stack of wonderful crafting books - both new and old. I decided that right now is the perfect opportunity with both kids at home and me on holidays to try out some of my favourite projects!

The little activity we did today was to make some lovely paper flowers from the "Phoney Flowers" project in the 'Meet Me At Mikes' book. We used old book pages and twigs from the footpath for ours. The kids painted the paper with ink beforehand. (nb. the old book pages are so lovely - yellowed and crinkly ... but beware! they can be quite brittle!!)


I was pleasantly surprised how this went with my 5 1/2- and nearly-3- year olds - they really enjoyed the project, and while I helped quite a bit, they had fun creating.

We are very pleased with our new blooms! (and are looking forward to our next fun project!)


Today has been such a strange weather day. We have been enveloped in a big cloud of dust - there is an eerie light around and a layer of dust on every surface of the house. And now it's chilly. These images were taken from the back deck - looking out from the second picture you normally can see the hill behind our house - it is totally lost in dust.

Thrift Delights and a Kitchen Tea

I visited my local Vinnies today - they have just refurbished the shop (it still smells like new carpet and fresh paint!). Lucky for me, they discovered that they have an over abundance of books and so are selling them off - fill a bag for $1!

I filled my bag with all sorts of novels - some for using with my students, some because they were good stories, and some because they had interesting covers! My son also picked up 3 lovely fairy tale books from the 70s with lovely illustrations (he's got a good eye!). You can see one of his books at the bottom left of the pic, my 'tower' of books keeps going out of the picture!

Not satisfied with my book stash, I also bought a sweet set of yellow daisy glasses (perfect for little hands, I think!) and a lovely heavy glass vase. Thrifty happiness!

Another thing that's made me happy lately was my sister-in-law-to-be's Kitchen Tea. It was a proper, old-fashioned ladies Kitchen Tea, complete with a vast assortment of delicate sweeties served on beautiful plates and stands and lovely china cups and saucers with flowers on them. So delightfully civilised!

As it was a 'traditional' Kitchen Tea, I gave a traditional gift. My s-i-l-to-be loves cooking so I made up a recipe box with blank recipe cards as well as some already filled in. I had so much fun putting all of this together (which is good because it took way longer than I thought it would!!). I enjoyed choosing some of my favourite sweet recipes for her as well as making all the cards and finding suitable vintage ladies for decoration!
Now we wait for the wedding! I'm very excited as I love a wedding! It's just over a week away and I still have my outfit to finish (I'm so good at procrastinating!) ... maybe I should go and do a bit now ..?

Book Love

On the weekend I went to the 'Freestyle Books' symposium at the State Library of Qld. There is an exhibition on at the moment of their collection of artist's books also. It was lovely being surrounded by gorgeous books, book lovers and book artists. My faves from the exhibition were these ones:
Tom Blue Children's Britannica
So perfectly cut by hand, I think, into an old encyclopedia.

Jonathan Tse Portrait of an Australian
This guy taught me at uni in the printmaking studios and he was making this book at the time - lovely images.

Tracey Bush British butterflies
This one feels so delicate and fleeting with the ephemera butterflies.

And I was also told about Brian Dettmer's books - so intricately cut and precise and lovely! He cuts around the illustrations in old textbooks and encyclopedias to make new, layered images with the book covers. As found on this blog.


I am all inspired to make some more books now, including one for the upcoming BEST book swap. Here's my latest collaged 'Vintage Ladies' book; it's orange 'sister' was posted for a birthday gift.


(Somehow that Lego policeman muscled in on my shots!!)


I'm really enjoying this format using the stab binding and including a little envelope in the cover; I can't wait to make some more! I may even get 'round to popping some up on my etsy shop too!

How to ... a book tutorial

Here is the tutorial on how to make an ‘old book cover’ journal, it's my first tutorial, so I hope it’s ok and easy to follow. Any comments welcome! Also, if anyone actually makes one, I'd love to see it!

1. Find an old book with an interesting cover, a good size (I like small ones!), and one that has damaged, yellowed pages (it will make you feel better about taking it apart!)

2. Carefully cut the page block away from the cover. Decide first whether you’d like to keep the end papers (sometimes old books have gorgeously patterned endpapers … this one didn’t though)

3. To neaten the bare spine, measure and cut some paper to cover it. I used a page from the book, which is the perfect height, but it was very brittle so I had to be careful it didn’t rip. The size of the spine cover should be the height of the book page and about 25mm wider than the spine.

4. To make the pages for your book, measure one of the old book’s pages and take 5mm off the side and top measurements. Decide on the number of pages and the type of paper you want and cut your pages to size. (Don’t make your stack of pages too thick, otherwise it will be very difficult to sew up – mine was 4 – 5 mm thick)

5. Sew up your pages using the Japanese Stab Binding method. There’s a great little explanation of how to do it here. Bundle your pages with heavier paper on the top and bottom and attach with bulldog clips so they don’t move while you’re sewing it up. You can use an awl or a very strong needle to make your holes (and having an old phone book underneath will save the table from lots of little holes!). The thread I used was stranded cotton that I ran through a candle to wax it. Waxed thread works heaps better.

6. Glue your sewn book block to the book cover. Use PVA glue and weigh it down with a heavy book once you’ve attached it to the book cover.

7. If you’d like to, you can create a little pencil holder to run down the spine. I used a thick-ish piece of paper. The dimensions of the paper should be about 50mm wide and as long as it needs to be, mine was 115mm. Fold back about 15mm on each side, glue each surface and then glue to spine. I found it easier to have the pencil in while I was gluing so that it kept the right shape.

7a. Alternatively, you could make a little paper ‘tab’ to glue in the spine, and then attach a map etc. to it (like in my NZ travel journal).

8. Choose some paper to make your ‘ephemera pocket’ out of. Again, I used one of the old book’s pages, but glued it to another stronger piece of paper. (I loved the chapter title at the top of the page, "Seth Washes a Handkerchief" so I had to use it!!)

Cut your paper to size, mine was 100 x 110mm, so that it fits nicely in the cover. Fold under 10 – 15mm on the sides and bottom and snip out the corners. Glue to the cover. Squash this bit under a heavy book too.

9. Your book’s done! You might like to lacquer or wax the outside of the cover to protect it more. Now you’re ready to write your travel journal, jot down your thoughts, or place your book by the phone for those important phone doodles or messages!

Nifty Thrifty

The Queen’s Birthday was a lovely family day for us. We went to the Lifeline Book Fair then had a ‘picnic’ on my mother-in-law’s deck with little cousins (we had intended to go to a more picnic-y place, but it was raining).


At the Book Fair I picked up some lovely vintage goodies. These two books have wonderful images and funny stories in them – I can’t wait to use some of them in my making! I also bought some craft magazines and craft book from the 1970s – so much orange, brown and macramé! Great!

I bought this sweet Baby Animals book for my girl, my boy got some Dinosaur magazines (can you tell he has a thing for dinos?!) and J got a daggy old quiz book – ‘hours of family fun’!!

At my mother-in-law’s, I rummaged through her fantastic collection of sewing patterns. We had a lovely time; her remembering the different ones she made for different occasions, and me drooling over the fabulously retro outfits! Here’s two I borrowed. They are only a year apart – from 1969 and 1970 – but very different, I think.

And here’s the fabric I bought today that will be perfect for making one of those patterns up! I was so happy with this find from my local Vinnies shop – 3.8m of vintage Finnish fabric for only $7!! A bit bright for me, but I love it anyway!

Ahhhh, so much thrifty goodness!