I first saw this idea on pinterest (while hunting for images of fabric boro) in a fascinating picture of Japanese pawn shop wrapping paper made by pasting together old ledger pages. For images of the real deal please follow this link to Sri Threads.

I tucked the image away in the back of my mind for a rainy day, or even a holiday! Time was at a premium as I was in the midst of term time focus.

Finally I have some free time and got to try out this way of recycling paper the other day.

Piano hinge/coptic binding on my dye sample books

I really like the textural surface of these pasted layers, the random scraps of text and image that I allowed to remain or purposefully included, and the tone on tone of white, off white and cream.

I am smitten with the results! Here comes my next sketch book: 100% recycled from receipts, offcuts, old envelopes, posters, odds and ends, and old shopping lists.

My intention is to use a hybrid piano hinge/coptic binding technique which I developed as I find this emulates the flexibility of spiral bindings but has the added advantage of never sticking at odd angles when you try to open or close it. For me this is of supreme importance as it bugs me hugely when my sketch books don’t open and close smoothly!