dimentians of recycling!

I promise you it's not a spelling mistake!  I worked with a group of dementia sufferers and their carers this morning at their 'dementia cafe' and my Sophie couldn't remember the word dementia and used dimensions, which I thought was rather a fab play on words!  Anyway, getting to the point, we made little notebooks pretty much entirely from recycled materials, so I thought I'd share the steps with you here!  It was such a fun morning, with lots of laughter, singing, and new friends made :)

To make the book, have a rummage around the house and find some cardboard such as an Amazon box, discarded envelopes, the dregs of a matchpot of emulsion paint, string/twine, buttons and old book paper/music paper.

Cut two pieces of cardboard 7.5cm x 10.5cm

Tear off strips of the paper covering on one side of each of the pieces.

Use a piece of kitchen towel to smear some emulsion or acrylic paint over the card.  If you rub in a couple of colours it looks amazing!  I just wish I'd taken pictures of some of the work from this morning!

Trim at least 6 pieces of paper measuring 15cm x 11cm (that's 1/4 of an A4 sheet)

[digression:  the shift button on the numeral 4 on my keyboard gives me a $, so I  have £s and $s available; I was surprised to discover recently that US keyboards don't feature £s - I know I shouldn't be surprised, but I was!!!] 

Fold the papers in half, nest them together like a little book, poke two holes (no need for precision)  and tie a piece of string through.

Use double sided sticky tape, or a pritt stick to glue the card covers to the little book.  

Decorate using a flower and a button.  The button isn't sewn on.  I tie a piece of

string through before gluing it down :)

You can then decorate the pages inside with torn pieces of text...

and punched shapes...

Just outside the community centre where we met this morning was this gorgeous owl - isn't he fab?