Repurpose - the Stationery McGyver

I repurpose a lot of items at home. I am very much aware of the environmental impact things like excessive packaging has and I recycle and... you know... all that. It's important, but thats not what this post is about!

I love the challenge of reusing something old. Rescuing items that are falling apart and turning them into something new. I mean, I run an online store based on that thought! I do that at home as often as possible and use the same principles while I travel. Even though recycling and reducing waste is important, the challenge is equally important to me. And, let's be honest now, when I get an idea, I need to work on it *right now.* So, I will use whatever materials I have at hand.

I do also like the idea that being creative doesn't require a huge budget. Don't get me wrong, I am more that happy to spend money on good quality stationery, go a little nuts about pens and don't get me started about what happens to me in bookstores... This doesn't mean that you *need* a lot of money to make things. Some basic supplies from the dollarstore (or the equivalent from your country) can get you pretty far.

Reusing things is almost a second nature to me, so I wanted to start sharing some of the things I do. A lot of the things I make right now are snailmail-related, just because I have limited time on my hands nowadays. I have many projects planned that have nothing to do with mail, those are coming as soon as i have time to finish them.

Photos on this post are of the vintage stamp sticker packs sold in my online shop! Click HERE to see them!

While I work on some upcoming projects, please share with us:

What's the repurpose project or trick you're the most proud of?

Sunday musings - more paper

I spent a good part of yesterday just chopping up paper. I have so many gorgeous things I've found and rescued over the years, but they tend to be forgotted and left unused. The whole point why I look for these treasures is to give them a new life as something else. The idea is not to just bring them home and let them pile up.

So I started the daunting task of slowly chipping away the mountain of beautiful paper. I have a few small boxes full of paper snippets. Things I've fallen for for whatever reason, saved them and here they are, unused. I talked about this before, but as I often have the tendency to do, talking doesn't really fix the situation, actions do.

I finally started figuring out what to do with all this. I finished the envelopes with the pandas and pies from earlier in the week. I then started putting together paper packs. I made these awesome ephemera packs in black and white. They have as many different kinds of things as I could pack in them; book pages from the 1950s, vintage playing cards, illustrations and photos clipped from books, postage stamps and other bits and bobs. I'm quite happy how they turned out. There's a few available for $4 per pack. Each pack has 20+ pieces.

There's also packs of vintage flower and plant illustrations available for $3 per pack. Each pack contains at least 20 vintage illustrations. They are from gardening books from the 1970s, printed on high quality glossy paper. 

You might have also noticed there is a new link at the top of this site, Vintage Paper Packs. This goes to another store of mine, where you can purchase some of my items. I'm hoping to start adding more and more vintage paper and other finding to that shop as time goes by. Right now, however, The packs are available in my Etsy shop as well.

I have to make a confession. When I was putting together those packs of paper, I actually remembered the ideas I had for most of the paper. I've saved those pieces over a long period of time and kept them with specific projects in mind. I'm not quite sure when I thought I'd get the time to make all these projects though...

Anyhow, paper packs: yay or nay?

On the crafting desk - pandas and pies, paper, oh my

It's that time again to start going through all the beautiful materials I have piling up in my craft closet. Just because it's spring and I am sorting through things, doesn't make it "spring cleaning".

I'm just... taking inventory.

That's right, sounds much more fun than cleaning!



I started going through my stashes of awesome paper. As I go through the materials for any of my products, I always save little snippets or pictures I think are great. Sometimes I use them in crafts, but there's always a huge pile that I'm not sure what to do with. I think I will bring back the paper packs to the shop... I had those available some time ago, but once I ran out, I just didn't make any more. I think I might just do the same thing again.

I feel bad when I have these amazing pieces of mainly vintage paper that aren't getting the appropriate attention they deserve.


I also found some awesome books from the 70s in the piles of books I've rescued. I've had them both for a while, but they've just been waiting for the right inspiration. Last night I got started, I feel they will make amazing envelopes. I will list some in the shop once they are finished.

Do you do this? Save paper snippets and run out of time to use them all?

On the crafting desk

It's been a while again since I've shown you a peek of what's going on in my studio. My to do list runs about a mile long and there is paper absolutely everywhere. Right now I have two major undertakings; a large Easter project and restocking the shop.


I just noticed I'm running very low on the most popular products in the shop, which will have to always be my priority. I just started the prep-work fueled by coffee. So, at this moment, my schedule for the next two hours reads : "cut paper". In the afternoon I will progress to : "fold paper".

I'm so happy! (And not even saying that sarcastically)

More books

While I was thinking what shall I do with my new vintage trunk, my friend called me telling her mom is moving to a new home. Why she thought this was particularly interesting to me was because there was a basement full of books no one wanted...

See where I'm going with this?


...this happened!

There were some really amazing things I found in that basement... More one those as I start using them!

The trunk was put to good use immediately.

Latest finds - books, maps and superheroes

I haven't shared any thrift shop finds in a long while. Partially because I haven't spent much time treasure hunting and the times I have gone, I haven't found anything interesting enough to share.

Last Friday I felt like I needed a little break and took an afternoon off from my usual schedule to go for a walk. Somehow when I decide to "go for a walk" I end up at a second hand store or a thrift shop. I don't know how that happens, a total mystery. (Does this ever happen to you?) I think it helped that I hadn't been to my regular shop in a while, because I found some pretty neat things.



Two vintage atlases and some old maps. The maps are especially nice find and I already have a use in mind for them. I'll share it with you guys once I've finished. The larger of the two atlases is a Spanish one from 1992 and the real treasure is a French atlas of the world from 1978.



I also found a few other books, "Curious George" and "the hole in the hill" as well as a Pillsbury dessert cookbook from 1968. The photos in the book are awesome. As much as I'm tempted to try some of the tasty-sounding recipes, this book will be made into envelopes. How much fun would pictures of pies and pastries be in your mailbox?

The last treasure is a picture book of Mont Saint-Michel. It's absolutely beautiful with large, high-quality photos of the details of the castle. It's falling apart pretty badly, but I can make such beautiful things out of these pages. I'm really excited!



Finally, I couldn't resist cheap comic books. With 25 cents a piece, they were a steal. I grabbed a few that I think I'll read first and then see what I might make out of them.

Have you found anything fun recently?

I love books

It's probably pretty obvious to everyone by now, but I do love books. In my dream home, one day, there will be a library. Even though, I have to admit, I also own a Kobo, nothing beats a book.

You can imagine my joy when I met a real live librarian (who was awesome, by the way) who asked me if I would like to come rummage through some of the books she has to weed out from her library.

Would I ever?!?

I squee'd with sheer joy and was ready to barge in immediately. She's the librarian at a private school here in Montreal and was getting ready for the new school year. I went to visit on Friday and was tempted to take all of the books home. I tried clinging on to the last fleeting scraps of sanity and only picked the ones I knew I could use (and maybe a couple I just absolutely loved...)

I came home with 45 children's books and an assorted pile of lose pages... These are mostly from the 60s and 70s, but there are a few newer ones in the mix as well. They are the books that have suffered over the years (loose pages, binding coming undone) or the ones that no one has checked out in years. They were looking for a new home and how could I say no...

I'm so excited and can't wait to start using these! Stay tuned for pictures once I get the work properly started!

Materials - 40s travel guide

Zakopane, Przewodnik Uzdrowiskowy (Polish). As I don't speak Polish, I don't have an exact traslation. Please let me know if you know what it is. It looks like a travel guide of Zakopane, a ski town in southern Poland. The booklet is printed in 1948.

Condition: The glue used to bind this booklet is wearing out, so the pages are falling off the spine. The pages have been stapled together and the metal is rusting. Ultimately this little booklet has seen better days, I'm surprised that it has survived this long.

The cover is very funky, it looks like some of the letterpress stationery you see around. The insides have really great black and white pictures and some very cool advertisements.

I haven't quite decided what to make of the cover yet, but some of the advertisements will most likely become covers for notebooks.

Vintage die cuts

I have a bunch of vintage die cuts from England and Germany. They are at least 25-30 years old, some definitely older. I don't know how common these things were, especially in North America, but I remember having these around when I was a kid.

They've been around since the 1800's and they are decorative paper. Initially they were decorations for diaries or journals and hugely popular in Europe. They were sold in sheets, where a number of small pictures were first printed on the paper and then the spaces between the pictures were cut out. The pictures were then held together by thin paper strips. This is why they often aren't perfectly cut.

Old skool LOL cats?

Picture from TIAS

These were often used in scrap books or scrap albums, not the likes we have today, but literally books that were put together to collect pretty pictures. These pictures would include these types of die cuts, but also clippings from newspapers and other paper snippets. In northern Europe especially these books were passed around to friends who would then use one page of the book to write a little note, often good wishes or a short poem, and decorate the page with a die cut. Typical topics for the die cuts were flowers, angels, children and babies as well as cute animals. If you're curious to find out more details (and know Finnish) check out kiiltokuvamaailma.

I've had these for a while and I've been trying to think of what to make out of them. I finally have (what I think are) some good ideas, so there's a lot of experimenting going on over here. I think these will look great on some of my new products. I have other vintage paper as well, so I'm trying out all sorts of things for the craft show.

Have you seen these types of die cuts before? Did you have (or still have) any?

Materials - Little Bear

Little Bear and Little Bear's Friend. Written by Else Holmelund Minarik and illustrated by Maurice Sendak. Little Bear is copyrighted for 1957 and Little Bear's Friend for 1960. No separate printing year is mentioned.

Condition: These two books were in rather good condition. There are some rips and tears and one of them has some pencil doodles on a few pages. The rips weren't too bad, so most of the pages are still usable. The second book, Little Bear's Friend was coming off the binding a bit form the top of the book.

The illustrations are just adorable. The feeling of them is serene which is largely due to the colouring, only three colours are used. Black for the outlines and shading and two colours for the colouring. Little Bear's friend is using green and brown and Little Bear brown and blue. These book's are called "I can read" books and meant for kids who are learning to read. There are several short stories about Little Bear, such as "Little Bear goes to the moon", "Little Bear and Emily" and "A party at Owl's house".

I loved the illustrations the second I found the books. They are incredibly cute. The paper has a wonderful texture to them. The size of the books is relatively small, so my usual work, such as stationery is out of the question. These will become party supplies for a kids birthday or maybe a baby shower.

Materials - 50s household plants

Hyötykasvit Värikuvina (Finnish). Household Plants in Colour. This small volume was printed in 1956. The original (in Swedish) was produced by Tore Linnell and Nils Hylander, illustrations by Edgar Hahnewald. Translated to Finnish by Toivo Rautavaara.

Condition: This little guy is absolutely falling a part. Looks like the pages are all there, but most of them are falling away from the binding. Some pages have a few rips and tears. Most pages, however, are still intact without much damage apart from coming off from the spine.

How could you not love the pictures? They are just spectacular. The pages show illustrations of different household plants, fruits, vegetables and herbs among a few other useful plants. Each book plate shows the plate number on the top corner as well as the Finnish and Latin names at the bottom.

This book is rather small, so I need to be careful what I want to make with this. I do think some of the bookplates would be gorgeous framed. Add some vintage flare to the kitchen wall perhaps... Some of the more damaged pages will most likely become notebook covers. No matter what will come out of this one, the items are bound to be wonderful.

Materials - 70s cookbook

The New World Encyclopedia of Cooking. Edited by the staff of Culinary Arts Institute. This large cookbook was published in 1979. It's the "new edition" so includes cutting edge culinary techniques, like 'microwave cookery' and 'the food processor'.

Condition: although this book is fully intact, there were a few rips on some of the pages as well as some staining.

What I loved about this book was the pictures. Most pages have two-tone illustrations, in either black and brown or black and green. The topics range from cooking utensils, to ingredients and completely random, yet awesome pictures. There are some 50s housewives as well as a lobster reading the newspaper and everything in between... The book also has 8 colour pages, one of which was unfortunately torn.

I made larger envelopes of the colour pages and used the pages with the two-tone illustrations for small note cards.

The Library

As you might have noticed, I've been making a lot of changes here in my blog. Among them, the library. I've finally added links to the books I've already documented here and I will keep doing so as I find more beautiful books to use for my craft.

 Take a look at the library HERE or click on the library tab at the top of the page.

Any comments are always welcome!

Materials - British Flora

The concise British flora in colour. By W. Keble Martin, MS, DSc, FLS. This book was published in 1972 (am I just imagining or do I somehow end up with a lot of books from that year? Maybe it was a really good year for amazing books) and has a foreword by His Royal Highness Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (neat little fact in my opinion).

Condition: This book is actually one of the better ones when it comes to condition. It's printed on rather heavy paper, which I believe credits much of the condition. There were a few rips and tears and some staining on the book, most pages, however, were in great condition.

This book was one of those that I immediately was drawn to. The illustrations are amazing. It has a good number of colour plates and a few black and white ones. To quote H.R.H. Prince Philip "It represents a life's work and has taken nearly sixty years to complete." Makes me appreciate it even more.

This was also a book that I had a harder time deciding what to do with. I had ideas, but for a long while I felt bad about cutting it up (This happens often, more on that later) but I realized that even though the condition was not as bad as a lot of the other books I've rescued, it had reached the end of it's life as a book and would delight so many more people as stationery. This combined with a request of one of my regular customers decided the conundrum for me. It was time to make a few stationery sets.

Brinner Supplies

After comments from three trusted advisors, I decided to open my second Etsy store, Brinner Supplies. I started the shop set up yesterday and will continue today.

I've been thinking about this for a while and I feel now is the right time. Brinner Supplies will be a place where I sell those treasures I've found when looking for materials for my crafts. Like I mentioned already, I can't leave beautiful paper goods behind when I find something great. There is only so many hours a day I can actually spend making things, so I can't possibly use everything I have.

       

So, now I have a place to find better homes for those vintage and newer items! I've listed a few things already, but will keep adding new listings as I go along. I have a ton of vintage looking stickers, like airmail and address labels as well as some really cute heart stickers just in time for valentines day. I'm also going to put together some scrap packs with book pages, vintage ads and other paper goodness I've accumulated over the years. I have some beautiful books starting from early 1900s to 1960s that just aren't being used to their full potential.

It will be more work to maintain two shops, but I'm excited!

Materials - French storybook

Jolies Fables & Contes de Fée. Written by Marcelle Vérité and illustrated by Gyo Fujikawa. This little treasure was published in 1972 and has 35 stories and nursery rhymes, including little red riding hood, puss in boots, the ugly duckling and many more.

Condition: The book was in a reasonable shape but a number of the pages were damaged. It also looks like something or someone has been chewing on the corner of it.

When I found this book I was immediately drawn to the amazing illustrations. There are both, colour and black and white drawings in the books. The illustrations are vibrant and colorful. Due to the size of the illustrations, these pages were begging to be made into larger greeting cards. Because of the large images, they are perfect for the cards, as the image extends to the back of the card as well.

Cards are available in my Etsy shop

Materials - Nature Atlas

Hammond's Nature Atlas of North America. Written by E. L. Jordan Ph.D. (Through some investigative digging, I found out the E.L. stands for Emil Leopold. Very critical information)

This book was published in 1952. It has 320 original colour paintings and 32 maps. 282 of the paintings are by Walter Ferguson and 38 by John Cody.

Condition: The pages that were with the book were in great condition, however, there were a few pages missing. The binding was coming loose and there were a few tears.

I found this book from the McGill University book fair and absolutely loved it when I found it. I knew this would make amazing notecards. The challenge with this material was that the pages are very delicate and therefore hard to work with. I managed to make notecards out of the pages, but it did require much more careful work than the materials I usually work with. I made notecards that measure 5 3/4 x 4 inches and matched handmade brown envelopes with the sets. You can find the sets in my Etsy store.