Vintage Ephemera Notebooklets

Paper, paper, paper. My “office” AKA the place I keep my paper, is over run with old catalogs, encyclopedias and the like. Mrs. Hughes is to the point of barely tolerating my paper pack ratting. While flipping TV tonight, real men don’t watch they flip, I paused for about 3 minutes on a show about hoarders. People with such a compulsion for obtaining things that they will drive down the street ahead of the garbage truck and pluck out “finds.” It made me think of all of the time I’ve spent digging through boxes and shelves at little antique stores looking for a cheap book with a leather cover that I can rip apart and make into, yes, another book.

And so it goes, I’ve got old paper that’s not good for much unless it’s remade into something else. The encyclopedias are awesome to flip through as they are filled with etchings, but most of the information can be found with a few clicks online. Not to mention that the books themselves have seen better days, usually they are falling apart by the time I find them. So sitting and looking through my pile one day I started to notice that there were a lot of blank pieces of paper in them. At the front of the book were a few blank pages, then at the back, then the etchings where blank on the back. So I started ripping them out with the idea of creating little notebooks made from what I call “blanks.” I used the covers off of old books as well as the cover for my notebooklets as I call them. They are bound with post screws, which allows for them to be filled with more paper once you start to run low. The covers are hinged to make them easy to open. I’ve hinged them in several different ways but my favorites are black ribbon or the little twist ties that come with garbage bags. Finally a use for those things.

Below are a few samples of my notebooklets, they average about 3 inches wide by 4 inches tall and contain around 35-50 blank pages. They are small enough to fit into most purses. I hope to have these in a few shops around town soon, Scarlett over at Scarlett Scales Antiques, scarlettscales.blogspot.com, has expressed some interest in carrying them. I’ve got a pile of them on the window sill waiting to be finished up. My thought on it is, I might not make much on them but at least I will get some of this paper out of here. Which will make Mrs. Hughes happy, and that’s really what it’s all about.

If you would like to buy one of my notebooklets drop me a line at cj@theupcycler.com I’m still working on the website but we can do it through email. They run $20 each and include the shipping within the United States. I take PayPal or good old fashioned checks through the mail. Please also contact me if you have a shop and want to carry anything you see on my blog.
I’ve got to get some of this stuff out of the garage!