Not every book is destined to be read, cherished, and preserved for posterity. The sad reality is that huge numbers of books are shredded, recycled, or sent to the landfill every day worldwide. Yet therein lies an opportunity for the recycling-conscious or frugal bookbinder. If you have (or can get your hands on) some inexpensive or unwanted books, it’s possible to reclaim some perfectly usable, and often beautiful, materials to use in your own projects.

In this video I will show you how to break down an old book, how to strip the covering materials to yield plain greyboard, how to build a handy piercing cradle from a book cover, how to upcycle a page from your old book to make a handsome cover for a pocket notebook, and finally how to sew a simple pamphlet binding for the cover we just made.

A word of caution though, before you start tearing into an old copy of ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ or your kid’s university textbooks: always be certain the book you’re thinking of recycling isn’t rare or valuable. Search for your book online, or check with a local independent used bookseller or librarian. Once you are certain of your book's lack of value, come on back to this video and follow along!

Video Chapters:

Breaking Down a Book: 2:36
Removing Covering Material: 5:17
Making a Piercing Cradle: 11:04
Making a Pocket Notebook: 19:30

I have often (especially when I got started bookbinding) upcycled old, outdated textbooks. Textbooks are initially very expensive, but changes in curricula or advances in knowledge frequently render many of them obsolete. These types of books are a great source of sturdy greyboard, as textbooks are meant to stand up to heavy use. The downside of textbooks for the crafty recycler is that they are usually pretty boring on the inside (as many students can attest) and so the decorative paper possibilities are limited. The glossy pages do make excellent waste paper however, and will not usually bleed ink when used as guard paper during gluing.

Large-format 'coffee-table' books and atlases, on the other hand, usually have a wealth of colorful pages that can be incorporated into your own bookbinding projects. The quality of paper in these types of books can also be of good quality.

Potential materials to reclaim from an old book:

- Greyboard/book board (almost always two matching pieces)
- Endpapers/flyleaves (also, almost always a matched pair)
- Endbands (not always present or reusable, but most of the time)
- Decorative papers - full-page color photos, maps, illustrations, etc (depends on the book)
- Plain paper (sometimes there will be several blank pages at the end of the book)
- Useable printed paper (if the printed pages are on good quality paper they can be reused in projects where they will be hidden)
- Waste paper for glue guards, etc. (usually lots of this)

I hope you found this video to be useful and inspiring, and if you have other ideas on how to upcycle old books, please let me know in the comments!

Thanks for watching!

________

You can now buy me a coffee here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/fourkeys...
Or you can drop a tip in my PayPal account: https://paypal.me/FourKeysBooks?local...

Four Keys Book Arts marbled papers and handmade books are available for sale in my Etsy shop, with worldwide shipping available: https://etsy.me/2VGqhcr

Follow me on social media:

Instagram
  / four_keys_books  

Facebook
  / fourkeysbookarts  

All original works of art in this video are copyrighted exclusively by Four Keys Book Arts.

#fourkeysbooksarts #bookbinding #upcycling