my husband presented me with this pile of little books a few years ago. i was totally over the moon because they have the most wonderful cover designs and beautiful illustrations. these were produced in huge quantities at the beginning of the 20th century and i guess most households with a somewhat decent library (or the desire to appear as though they had a decent library) would have had whole series of them. they are either classic pieces of literature, collections of prints by well-known artists (often curated by a common theme) or household guides to various flowers, trees, crop plants, little critters such as butterflies, moths, birds or common fresh water fish and more.
the stack has shrunk quite a bit since i got the books because i've been using lots of the illustrations as pages or journaling cards in journals i made. the covers were turned into sketch books filled with the kind of drawing paper from big pads that you find in office and craft supply stores. (we checked the books for potential antique value before i cut into them.)
they measure roughly 12x18 cm - 4 1/4 x 7 1/4" with a spine that's only 1cm - 3/8" which makes them the perfect size for single signature booklets to use on the go.
these were the first ones i turned into sketch books. i reinforced the spines on all of them with fabric from my stash, covered up all the labels (except one because i liked the title) with scraps of tea dyed paper and hammered metal book corners onto all of them.
i quite enjoy finding fabric for the spine and paper for the inside covers that match the cover.
with most of these it's not just the covers that have history. the fabrics i select for them almost always do too: two of the spine fabrics used to be pairs of pants too torn for reapir (the dark blue/petrol and the pale green one - you can even see a seam on the green one), the red fabric just above used to be a top i absolutely loved when i was younger (it belonged to my sister before she grew out of it and when it didn't fit any of us any more i cut it up and made my sister a handbag out of it), the gold one was among some bigger fabric scraps my cousin gave me after she graduated from an art and design school, the brown one with the big swirls used to be a scarf and the fabric with the crazy patterns in blues, greens, white and browns used to be a bedspread i bought just to cut up for fabric. fond memories - haha!
the first journal with all black pages i ever saw was the square dylusions journal that was released a few years ago. since then i've seen black paged journals and note books appear more frequently and i thought i could try and make some myself. these covers my husband brought for me from the library again where just perfect for them.
i had to create new spines for all of these covers because the front and back where connected only by a strip of fabric that had the manuscript glued into it. there was no chance of getting the textblock out without completely taking them apart. i chose different colours of book cloth instead of fabric from my stash this time since i needed something a little more sturdy to recreate the spine. the signatures are a tiny bit wonky because of the minisucule difference in size of each sheet. but considering that i measured and cut each of them by hand, kneeling on the floor, pressing down a looong metal ruler with one hand and carefully cutting, using a really sharp blade, with the other, i did pretty well...
by the way: i did not fold each of the sheets individually. i folded the entire stack needed for one signature in one go, holding all the edges down carefully to make sure nothing shifted to where i didn't want it. when there are this many sheets in one signature the fold looks nicer and neater that way.
both the white and the black books can be used for writing, drawing, doodling, sketching and whatever else you can think of. the black paper, of course, takes anything white, paint and paint pens, gel pens, chalk, pastels, coloured pencils and anything else with opacity.
they are completely blank and unembellished and, quite untypical for me, they don't feature any pockets or envelopes at all.
i still have some of the little books left and i will make some more sketch books (as they seem to be quite popular at the little markets i sometimes sell at). we'll see if i manage to detach myself from the butterfly and moth books...
i just love seeing them all stacked like this...
hugs to you all! xxx