I love to recycle packaging, junk mail and advertising materials into books

I like the freedom of designing my books as I make them, discovering ideas along the the way

Its amazing how much packaging can be saved over time

For this book I used cereal packaging with a peephole and pasta boxes with acetate windows for the interior pages

and sealed the pages with white Gesso

only on one side because I liked the dark look of the cardboard ( later I painted them with Parisian essence to age )

On the cover I used double sided tape to stick down the tabs

to make it more sturdy

The little window will have something inside

Taking a load of baguette bags I bought back from France

I scrunched them up into balls and wrinkled them

opened them up and stuck them to the cover packaging with pva glue

This gave the cover an oldish feel with a lovely rough texture.French text shows through the window

I covered the inside with some French text from a 1900’s magazine, stamping and my hand drawn doodle drawings.

I didn’t like the brightness of the gessoed pages so aged them with washes of Parisian essence

When dry I cut off some of side flaps from the inside pages saving them for tags and pockets later

I didn’t have an awl to make the holes for binding the book, instead I used a hammer and nail. It worked fine

I punched 3 rows of holes weaving in and out with cotton mop thread

leaving a tail inside I then plaited the threads and added a piece cardboard for a bead thing

The extra holes seen were a mistake and can be covered up with more baguette paper and glue later

Side flaps on some of the pages hold piles of water colour papers for collage and drawing

They are tied with cotton mop thread

The loose water colour papers are white and hand dyed with Parisian essence

See through windows add more interest

Pockets and string hold found papers and tags. The book is still not finished and I will probably add more tags and pockets

Toggles were sewn on the front with a string to close

This book has a Japanese feel to it and measures 24 x19cm. 5 pockets hold 40 pieces of water colour paper with another 12 pages. Some have windows.

I try to keep on top of my collecting by making something with the packaging every few weeks.

What do you make from your junk?