Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Small Books

UPDATE: Patti's story

Wanted to share a photo of some awesome books I am putting together with Patti. I needed to clean out my paper drawers and things I have saved up for art journals. I came across all this loveliness and began to sort it into piles to see how many books I could create. Had plenty! Enough to make 10 journals, pass on 2 bags of papers I will never use (donated to me a while ago) and yes I still have some leftover (a far more reasonable amount!).


The smaller ones have painted canvas covers and are waiting to be bound together still. I am super happy about this little stash of books.  I do not plan to use these as art journals or scrapbooks (see why below) so.....what to do with them?




Untitled, originally uploaded by Trish Nonaka.





MY CONTINUOUS ALWAYS ONGOING BOOKS
You probably know that I keep an art journal going at all times (even if I don't post from it regularly, it exists) and I have numerous sketchbooks as well. I have a Copic Marker Book to practice in, a couple Zentangle/pattern books, my own doodle books, a techniques books and a lettering/italic/alpha book. I prefer moleskine or pentalic books and art quality papers/sketchbooks for all these I have an altered composition Stories Book that I write stories in that I want to eventually add to my scrapbooks. (Filled with family and personal memories and events, not fiction.) I have a 3 up Stories Binder I use to quickly store scraps of stories like things the kids say, or notes from a brain-storming session, snips of memories my siblings have shared, etc. They simply aren't in complete form yet...they eventually get worked on in the composition book.) And of course my Scrapbook Library with all its various volumes. And like most scrappers I use only archival quality materials since I want them to last a while.


So what about all the other stuff that I don't want to scrap? I am not a daily diary kind of person (you can probably guess that from my sporadic blogging) so I have no need for that type of book. I do collect quotes, write poetry/haiku, make lists, and notes galore.

Enter the smash book, junque journal, ephemera diary or known by various other names.
What do you think of these things? Do you use one? If so, how?

I don't think there are very many people actually USING smash, junk/junque journals out there. Seems they make them and that is it. Interesting; but not what I am looking for. To me its a waste of time to create such a great book and then leave it without a purpose. I want it to have a purpose.

This from someone who says "What do you mean what is it? Does it have to be something? Its art!" 
Moving on.

Ideas I've seen where they actually used the books were mainly as planners for upcoming projects and Ikea books. I suggested "notes about wines? keep labels and rate them so you know which one(s) to buy again or avoid? certainly not worth scrapping but maybe smashing? maybe for everything i would put on evernote?" to a friend. I did find a 16 year old who made her own and divided it up in sections of photos, sketches, inspiration and random. And here someone else dares to ask the question how do you use these things?



Here are some titles I am considering for the books in the photos:
What I am Loving Right Now
Quotes (change that - if I moved them from evernote I would want these in a 3 ring binder because I like to add them by topic)
I Don't Wanna Throw It Away But I Don't Know What Else To Do With It (subtitle - Am I On My Way to Becoming a Hoarder?)
Books I've Read (again I think having them on evernote is better)
Art Supplies
This Inspires Me -or- Crap On My Bulletin Board







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