Paper Bag Book

A day or two before the Bookbinding 101 Zoom session was to begin, I poked around the Vintage Page Designs website and found some free instructions for making hand-made books.

The book I decided to make was called a Paper Bag Book because it used a brown paper bag

as the pages of the book. I like these kinds of projects because no special materials are needed. Just stuff you have around the house and in the recycle bin.

The paper bag was cut to a standard size sheet of paper 8.5 in. x 11 in. Cuts were made so the bag could be accordion folded.

I've made this type of book many times, but I learned it as a Meander Book. The only difference being that the loose pages/flaps were glued together in this book and left to change the direction of the fold in the Meander Book (hence the name)

I raided the recycle bin to make the cover from a cookie box. I had every intention of covering the cardboard with paper, but looking at the Windmill cookie box reminded me of my Auntie.

Auntie was Ma's younger sister and a second mother to us. Since Ma worked, we spent a lot of school vacations at Auntie's until we were old enough to stay at home by ourselves.

Auntie had a white cookie jar embossed with cookies. The cookie jar had a lid with a red knob. The cookie jar was always filled. Auntie would sometimes by the spiced cookies shaped like a windmill, and a Dutch boy and girl. 

I decided to leave the cardboard as is. Glued to the front and back of the paper bag pages. I made a button and string closure to hold the book shut.