Friday, November 12, 2010

A real page turner

Oak & Maple leaf garland made from repurposed vintage books
Page Turner paper sculptures made from repurposed vintage books
I have a thing for old books. I was at an estate auction this summer where I happened onto four boxes of castaway reads. This stack of lonely old books caught my attention. They clearly hadn't been touched in years. They were begging to be picked up, held tenderly and leafed through. And so I obliged. Perusing through them, I noticed these weren't particularly popular titles. They didn't contain noteworthy illustrations or interesting typography. The covers showed the scorch of sun damage and were quite dusty. I knew if they didn't sell they'd be carted off to the local dump. But these wouldn't draw much attention sitting on an antique store bookshelf I decided. So I made a deal with the whole lot: I'll buy all of you and take you home where I promise to handle each one of you to see what you contain from cover to cover. If I find anything particularly unique I'll put you up on etsy for adoption to a loving home; but if I don't, I promise to make you into something new - something that gets you noticed. Overwhelmed with emotion, the books remained quite silent which I of course took as a sign of humble agreement.

5 comments:

  1. a wonderful post! i love your leaf garland :)

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  2. Ditto on the leaf garland....gorgeous!!

    Janet xox

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  3. Love these! I'm a sucker for anything made out of old books/printed pages.

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  4. Thanks ladies! These are just 2 prototypes I was playing with, I'm still tinkering with some others. The folded book inspiration comes from Denise at Freshly Found. If you've never been to her blog you must check it out, she's over there in my list of favs on the right. Thanks for commenting! <3

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  5. Those sculptures are amazing!! And I love the leaf garland as well. Good use of old books!

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