Making books from scraps - Join me!

Today I saw on the morning news, children in India digging through garbage to find stuff that they can salvage and sell for a few pennies in order to help support their family. This brought tears to my eyes for two reasons. One, the sadness of them needing to do it in the first place, and two, the thought, that if the richer people could just organize themselves a bit better, and give the stuff directly to the poor families, then they would not need to go digging for it among dirt and filth.

For about a year or so now, I have been trying my hand and bookbinding and made many practice books. Some turned out quite nice, others have mistakes in them that taught me "what NOT to do".

Today an idea came to me. Why not set myself a challenge to make beautiful, fun or even crazy journals ... almost completely from re-cycled materials ... then donate the proceeds to these children in India.

The pages would need to be either be 100% re-cycled paper, or scrap paper that has been donated by others. Donated paper could come in the form of unused pages from unwanted notebooks and scrapbooks. Pretty craft and scrapbook papers that were never used, or any other type of re-usable paper or pages.

The covers could be made from many different types of materials. Book card, MDF, thin timber or plywood, re-cycled covers from old books, etc. The stitching done with string, yarn, crochet cotton and even wool donated by other creative people who have this type of stuff lying around doing nothing.

The possibilities for decorating the covers are endless. Anything from sticks, sea shells, fabric scraps, old jewelry bits, beads, fancy threads and cord, ribbons, scroll saw cut-outs, small craft shapes, tie dye fabric pieces, lace doilies, lace fabric, ... in other words, anything nice to look at!

Today I have set a goal to get myself organized. Work out the dimensions for my journals, and set up a nice place to work. Wish me luck!