books – Retro from Scratch

Ladybird Books are Rubbish!

12th Jul 201912th Jul 2019 retrofromscratch

Instagram can be a wonderful thing! As you know my business is all about recycling and reducing waste. So when I saw on Instagram last month, that Linzi Loves Books was throwing away some of her Ladybird Book collection – I was quick to ask if I could have her old covers.

A little note from Linzi with many wonderful covers which so many of us would have read when we were little

I’ve been following Linzi for some time on IG and she has thousands of Ladybird Books in her collection now, so much so she can afford to get rid of doubles, and the ones that are so damaged they’re not worth anything. (To collectors at least…)

She had removed the original papers from the books to use for paper crafts but the covers were destined for the bin. She didn’t know if I would be able to save any, but we both thought it was worth a try, so I paid the postage and she kindly sent them over.

Amazingly there were very few that I had to get rid of. The rest, although well loved, will make fantastic notebooks and are available to buy from my online shop, now.

Some of them needed a bit more love than others. For example this Little Red Hen book had an unfortunate sticker on the front cover (often the cause of damage for old ladybird books – charity shops are a nightmare!) however I was overjoyed at successfully removing it!

Let’s face it, we all love Ladybird Books and I think Lawrence Zeegan, author of Ladybird by Design, explains it perfectly: “A Ladybird book evokes strong feelings; deep-rooted memories of a time and a place when a simply designed and cheaply produced book could resonate across generations of readers.”

These books have passed through many generations, and it’s a lovely thought to know they can get a new lease of life as a notebook. As they are a little extra worn and don’t have their original pages, they are just £4 each. (Instead of £6) I have also added a drop down menu on the shop listing if you would like to add metal book corners for an additional £1.

They can be purchased with any of the upgrades from my shop; so they could come with lines, or as an address book, a diary etc.. just add the upgrade to your basket before you checkout.

There are so many things you can make with vintage book paper…

And if you fancy a bit of recycling yourself, you can purchase bundles of leftover paper from my notebooks to make all sorts of wonderful things. I hope to show you some craft ideas in future blogs -watch this space!

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My 5 favourite children’s books

5th Jul 20195th Jul 2019 retrofromscratch

I am sure that we all have at least one book from our childhood that we have fond memories of, and the wonderful thing about children’s books is that they can be enjoyed by all ages.

As I work with children’s books everyday I wanted to share with you some of my favourites.

1. Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl

It is probably of no surprise that Roald Dahl was going to feature in my top 5, and rightly so. Roald Dahl was an amazing author. I have fond memories of reading this book at Chigwell Row School. I think I must have been 8 years old. I was totally gripped by the story. I was fascinated about Danny driving his dad’s car and catching pheasants with raisins!

2. Mouse Tales by Arnold Lobel – ‘The Journey’

This is a short story about a mouse that wanted to visit his mother, so he bought a car and drove it until it broke, so then he bought some roller skates and rolled as far as he could until the wheels fell off. He then buys boots, some trainers and eventually has to walk barefoot until his feet are too sore – so he buys some new feet! As you can imagine at the age of 6 or 7 I found this hilarious! Considering it was written in the Psychadelic Era (1972) it makes perfect sense!

3. The Story of the Little Mole who knew it was None of his Business by Werner Holzwarth / Wolf Erlbruch

I first came across this book whilst on holiday in the Lake District, only a few years ago, despite it being first published in 1989. Basically a mole pokes his head out of the ground and a poo lands on top of his head! So he then asks a lot of animals if they were the culprits, each of them then giving the mole a sample to show they were not to blame! Eventually he realises it was a dog and gets his own back! This book had me in tears of laughter in what was, a very quiet book shop!

4. A Bit Lost by Chris Haughton

This comes in a gorgeous board version and I just adore Chris’ artwork. In my previous job running a museum, this book featured in one of my lesson plans for my monthly toddler groups. A baby owl falls out of a tree and starts to look for his mummy. A similar format to the mole story, a friendly but not very clever squirrel tries to help the baby owl by introducing him to a variety of woodland animals until he eventually does find his mummy, all thanks to a frog.

5. ‘Well-Loved Tales’ Sleeping Beauty retold by Vera Southgate

In particular this 1970s version illustrated by Eric Winter. There is one picture in this book that stuck in my memory and it’s not because it’s beautiful, far from it! Although I should add that the illustrations are absolutely amazing, the detail is something else!

Anyway, on page 31 there is a picture of a prince trying to make his way through the rose thorns and in his failed attempt, is covered in cuts and is bleeding. I don’t know why I remembered this picture so vividly but all I can think of it must have been quite a shock to see such a graphic image (with blood) in a children’s book.

Nevertheless I love a fairytale and I do remember recreating this as a play in the reading room at my infant school and also mum making me a Sleeping Beauty birthday cake, so Princess Aurora was clearly my favourite!

I thoroughly recommend re-reading your favourite children’s books – it has bought back such happy memories for me, and I’ve had a good laugh too!

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Finding one’s marbles…

14th Jun 201914th Jun 2019 retrofromscratch

Last Sunday I took part in a marbling workshop at the Baytree Shopping Centre in Brentwood. Amazingly, it was a FREE workshop provided by the Brentwood Art Trail.

The last time I tried marbling was when I was at school. We did it A LOT! So much so it wasn’t hard to find some that I did when I was 7 years old…

My love for old books means you often find marbled paper inside them, or on the page edge. And when I did a book binding course a few years ago at the Essex Record Office, we got to work with some beautiful marbled paper as you can see here.

I loved using this marbled paper to make my notebook.

The workshop didn’t disappoint. Run by Julie (@ladyvermillion on IG) she showed us some of the examples she had made and briefly explained what we needed to do.

The equipment is simple so you can easily have a go yourself at home. You just need a washing up bowl or tray of water, some nail varnish and some things to marble.

This is a brilliant way of using up old nail varnishes – I know I’ve got some stored away – random colours that seemed like a good idea at the time! All you have to do is pour the nail varnish onto the water surface – that’s the important bit, getting it on the surface, not dropping to the bottom of the bowl. I found the easiest way to do it was to pour close to the surface rather than at a height and to wave the bottle friskly!

It can get messy so gloves, apron and newspaper are a good idea!

It was very much a case of trial and error. Waiting for the paint to disperse definitely gave a more ‘natural’ marbled look, but, left too long and it would set on the water and not adhere as well. (Some peeled off my paper)

More paint gave brighter images, I tried some swirling with a wooden stick to create some patterns, but again speed was the key, if I wasn’t quick enough I found myself collecting the paint onto the stick.

However the stick method was handy for cleaning the water surface when you wanted to change colours. You could just push the excess paint to the side of the bowl and start a fresh, no need to change the water each time.

I mostly marbled on watercolour paper as I liked the texture – but being absorbent it did take longer to dry! I also marbled a glass jar which dried really quickly, it’s now a pen pot!

We were each given a notebook and the idea was to make a bookmark from our marbled paper at the workshop but we ran out of time with the drying so I waited until I got home to decorate my notebook and used the left over paper to make my bookmark.

I really like the swirls on the bookmark.

I left feeling eager to marble more! Although I love the idea of using up old nail varnishes, I think using a marble kit may be better for creating the papers that I would like. I was going to say they’d probably be more predictable but I don’t think marbling can ever be predictable and that’s the whole point, you never know what you’re going to create!

Some of my other work made from the workshop

If you’ve thought about marbling, I hope that maybe you might like to give it a go now. It’s so simple, and if you’re after inspiration on things to marble, just have a look on Pinterest! And if you make anything – I’d love to see it so please share and tag me in!