The most difficult part of book-crafting is deciding what types of books should be salvaged and which books should be turned into crafts. You don't want to cut into a first edition Faulkner, and you don't want to get halfway into a craft before realizing that you have a book with the wrong sort of structure for the craft you are attempting. In this post you will learn what the best types of books are for crafting in general as well as specific types of crafts.
For general crafting, you want to have access to a wide variety of potential craftable books. We will talk more about good sources of craftable book in the next post. Look at the copyright page and make sure you don't have a potentially valuable first edition. Depending on the craft, you will want a mix of unknown "junk" titles and nice covers of classic books.
A good indicator of when a book is ready to be upcycled is in the binding. If the binding is loose and the glue crumbling, the book is no longer ideal for reading and is a good candidate for crafting. Look for missing pages and manufacturer's defects as well. I once was halfway through reading an excellent book when the text suddenly began repeating itself. The same seven chapters were repeated through the rest of the book! While unsuitable for reading, this book is a good candidate for crafting.
Another indicator of a good up-cycling candidate is the readability of the book. If the book is grossly outdated or simply never read, then they are wasted sitting on a shelf. Why not turn those unused books into something lovely?
The final thing to consider when choosing books for upcycling involves determining what type of craft the book will be used for. Most crafts utilizing the structure of the book will require hardbound covers, while crafts using the internal pages of the book can be either soft or hard bound.
Stay tuned for the next post when we will look at the best sources of crafting materials.
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