Books for Crafting and Where to get Them

So you've got your X-acto blades and craft glue ready to start some awesome crafts? Oh wait, no books? That's ok, this post will give you some insight on the best sources for books you intend on using just for crafting purposes.

Wow, Real Book Art still Exists! Introducing the St. John's Bible

For the first time in over 500 years, a new version of the Bible has come out written completely by hand. Utilizing the skills of a team of scribes, St. John's University commissioned the work in 1998, and the book was completed in early May of this year.

 The book is to be bound in seven volumes, has 1,150 pages and the calligraphy was done using 130 year old ink applied with goose, turkey, and swan feathers.

Who says the old ways are dead?

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Where has the Beauty of Bookbinding Gone? Exploring Gauffered Edges

In a previous post I talked about finding some beautifully bound books in University of the Pacific's library that had some beautiful designs stamped onto the edges of their pages.

A little bit of digging provided some insight into the rarely seen practice. The technique is called gauffered edges, and was popular in the 16th and 17th centuries before falling out of fashion.

More pictures and history of gauffered edges after the jump.

The Library as a Museum: Part One

When I was little, my mom used to take us to the public library once a week during the summer. It was my favorite place to be in the world. Especially the Children's Library, where a squeaky voiced lady with a face like a bird mask (think expressive and interesting, not scary) would tell us the most wonderful stories with puppets and let us play with musical instruments. I always got the tambourine.

As I got older, the library maintained its wonder and mystique. I was fascinated by the idea that thousands upon thousands of people could come to one place and check out books that had passed through the hands of more people than they would ever meet in their life. I thought that if I was ever to come back in another life as an inanimate object, I should like for it to be a book so that I could be in a library and meet all kinds of interesting people and go to new places.

At University of the Pacific students and faculty have access to a wonderful source of books. One of my favorite things to do on campus is walk around the stacks and explore some of the older, rarer books. I spent a couple hours this week photographing some of the more interesting tomes in Pacific's collection.

The stacks seem to just go on and on at University of the Pacific Library

Back to Basics: How to open a book for the first time

I get it. We the people of the technology age, we know how to download a novel, sync it, link it, upload and download it all over again. So how could anyone possibly screw up something as simple as opening a book?

You'd be surprised.

If a book is well bound, the binding will be tight and rigid at first. Without properly limbering the book up a bit first, you risk damaging the structure of the binding and ultimately, the book itself.

Welcome to the Nook!

Bibliophile: noun
a lover of books especially for qualities of format; also : a book collector.

Welcome to the Bookkeeper's Nook, where you will learn how to take those dusty old books you picked up at flea markets, used bookstores or your neighbor's estate sale and either refurbish them to thier former state of glory, or up-cycle them into a whole new work of art.


With the advent of new technology such as the Kindle or Nook, books have begun to fall by the mainstream wayside. If you miss the feel of a nice hardbound in your hands, or the smell of a first edition classic, stick around and find some new and exciting ways to transform your old damaged books into the works of art they were meant to be.