Make a book out of rubbish.

Hello. I've just finished this little project. My friend Angela gave me some brown paper bags, could I do anything with them. I like a challenge so here's the result. It's a fun thing to make, children could do it, all you need is any old paper, paint, glue, pictures cut from magazines, and anything else you can think of. I used four of these bags.

I didn't try to make it neat and tidy, I just played around with it. There are lots of videos on yooootoooob on how to make a journal, some show very complicated designs, I wanted to make mine easy, like a scrap book.. I haven't made a cover, don't want to spend any more time on it.

 I painted the brown bags first, then found some pictures in leaflets. Cut a piece of fabric (bottom right), and machine stitched it on.

Plenty of doodling with felt tip pens.

Top left is tissue paper stuck down with PVA glue. A piece of an old map.

On the left is needle felting wool stuck down with PVA glue, and glitter glue added afterwards. I love the vibrancy of the colours and the rough texture.

More doodles, a bus timetable, stitched on map, stuck down red ribbon.

Spray paint used on the right hand side. Felt tip pens to colour in.

 A nice place to stay, Willersley Castle. Pictures out of a catalogue.

Two shoe laces to keep it closed.

I stitched them together using Kettle Stitch while following instructions on a video. It's quite easy to do.

An easy to follow video on how to do Kettle Stitching.


I won't be making another one, it was a fun thing to do, and good practice for trying out different materials and seeing what works and what doesn't. I like the sparkly glitter wool, I might use that again. You have probably noticed that the pages are not all the same width, I removed the handles and used the whole bag. Folded it in half, didn't cut it.

Anyone else fancy having a go. Have a look round your home and see what you could use.

Thanks for popping in, we'll catch up soon.
Toodle pip