Making Journals with Antique Books
Note: Today is July 4, 2023 (Happy Birthday, America). I just found this piece sitting in my drafts for over a year, entirely written but for some reason not yet published. All of the antique journals showcased here have already been purchased, and I’m not likely to do similar antique books anytime soon, sorry to say!
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A couple summers ago, I was visiting a friend in rural Missouri when we decided to go antiquing. I’ve always enjoyed perusing the aisles of antique stores, pondering where so many of these incredibly old items came from, what lives they were part of before being showcased in a store for someone new to come along and snatch it up.
During this particular trip, my eyes were attuned to books. Old books. At each store, I came across stacks of antique books that had interesting and unique covers, and I was determined to pluck the best of the best from each. At the time (it was the summer of 2020), exploring what antique books had to offer in terms of bookmaking was something on my list of things to try. I was still trying to figure out my bookbinding style and I hadn’t yet discovered papermaking.
So I bought a nice stack of antique books, only to get home and not touch them for two years. Sometimes that’s just the way life goes. It was on that trip that I ordered my first mould & deckle, and the rest of that summer and into the fall I was consumed by making paper.
Now, over the last several months, I’ve been putting all things Miner Book Co. on the backburner so that I can get my life in order. I just bought a house (my first one ever!) and with that comes a whole host of responsibilities and side projects. Unpacking, sure. Setting up my creative spaces again, sure. But for me, top of the priority list is doing a DIY kitchen remodel. Not an easy task by any means, and very time consuming and energy depleting, which means no time or energy for the creative pursuits I’ve become accustomed to.
There’s no better time to dive into this stack of antique books I’ve been holding onto for two years.
It was a fun process getting to explore the pages of these old books. Many of them weren’t in the best condition, with the spines falling apart, pages coming loose. One book had a child’s crayon drawings all over the interior pages. These books have character. They have lived a long life before they’ve reached my hands.
Now it’s time to give them a new purpose.
I gutted the interiors (which I can happily use for papermaking once my space is functional) and salvaged the covers. Some of the antiques also had artwork printed throughout, which I saved and pasted down into the new interior pages to carry over more of their original design. A few journals feature a hand torn deckled edge, which I simply adore.
To top it off, I repurposed the spines by giving them a stronger backing, and they accompany each antique in the form of a bookmark. Not every spine was in the best condition to be saved, however.
While I’m glad to give these antiques new life, this style of handmade journal is definitely not my preferred method of bookbinding. I personally find much more satisfaction making paper to use in my bookbinding endeavors, so I think I’ll turn back to that once I start checking off more things from my home to-do list.
In the meantime, enjoy!
