Old books are very easy to come by at thrift stores and garage sales, and they make the perfect base for creating scrapbooks and journals
. You can use the book as is, and just add your own photos, journaling, and embellishments to the pages, or you can simply use just the cover, adding your own archival pages with scrapbooking paper and cardstock.
A great way to upcycle and recycle old books before they end up in the trash. I especially love the travel journal below. It’s such a lovely artistic project and I look forwarding to making my own upcycled book journal.
Using old books may seem destructive, but keep in mind that these upcycled old books are destined for the trash anyway. Give them a new life, a different life.
Using old books to create journals and scrapbook albums is also a great way to save money on your scrapbooking supplies too, often hard backed scrap albums are expensive and this is a great alternative.
Here are 11 different ways to use old books for scrapbooking from around the web.
Are you looking for more Christmas Holiday papers and supplies? Check out these printable designs we found on Etsy and these fun festive Scrapbooking embellishments for Christmas we found.
Check out these other Christmas-themed posts for project ideas and tutorials for Holiday Scrapbooking. Love Christmas as much as we do? Join our Christmas Crafts & DIY Facebook group. or follow our Christmas Pinterest Boards
Get inspired by these journal pages by Johweh Redington. You can see numerous examples in her gallery. She combines magazine images, photos, writing, stitching stamps and more.
2. Vintage Book of Quotes
Kathie Link used a vintage book, to make a book of quotes. She kept the original pages of the books, and used art journal techniques to decorate them.
3. Vintage Book to Binder Scrapbook.
Take an old book, remove the pages, add a binder mechanism, and you have a unique ring binder scrapbook! This tutorial shows you exactly how.
Cosmo Cricket shares four ways to redo thrifted hardcover book: as a Kindle cover, a shadow box, a secret compartment book, or this scrapbook album held together with loose binder rings.
5. Binder Ring Christmas Journal
It’s only July, but if you’re thinking about how you’ll document the holidays this year, here’s a great take on a vintage book journal from The Nerd Nest. Interesting factoid: she only finished this book in 2012 even though it documents her 2009 Holidays.
Just goes to show, it’s never too late!
6. A Year in a Book – Free Class
Join Heidi Sonboul as she takes you through A Year in a Book – a free class that uses a vintage hardcover book cover as the base of a scrapbook.
This class by Maggie Holmes is no longer available, but you can still get lots of inspiration for altered book pages from this post on her blog.
Pretty up the cover of your altered book scrapbook or journal with beautiful embellishments, like Marie Ramirez did. This would be great if you’re giving the scrapbook as a gift.
Do you have some letters you’d like to preserve? Bind them into a book, for ease of use and preservation. See a few examples from Sue Bleiweiss
9. Altered Book Scrapbook Page Inspiration
Get even more inspiration for scrapping in old books with these page shares from on Alissa Fast the Cocoa Daisy Blog.
Cathe Holden explains how she made these stitched pocket pages in some vintage Reader’s Digest books. See even more pocket ideas for scrapbooks here.
Finally, use discarded pages from old books to make semi-translucent decorative tape, kind of like DIY washi tape! Birgit shows how simple it is in her DIY. You can do this with several kinds of paper too!
Ok so before go, here are some more Altered book craft projects that use old books to create new crafts or in some cases pieces of art. You may question whether trashing old books is the “right thing to do” but stop and ask yourself if you don’t make or create something with this old or vintage book where will it end up? You will be shocked to know how many books just get thrown into the trash.
In fact in Turkey Garbage collectors in the Turkish capital have opened a public library made up entirely of books once destined for the landfills. Every book deserves a second change, whether it is as a craft, a scrapbook or the chance for someone to read it again.
Looking for more journal ideas? then check out these DIY journals , here is another version we found on youtube.
You are destroying history of thought, some mention of research for book value should be made prior to destruction of books as some books have incredible & suprising value. As an example, we were about to let go of a book on nursery rhymes when we decided to look it up. The book was recently sold for over $1200.00.
it s funny how,Anne ,your are giving only a financial value to the book…
I would much rather see a book used in this manner where it will be enjoyed for a long time, rather than just trashed. I have my shorthand book from waaaay back in the 1960’s when I was in high school. I’ve used pages from it on “just a note” cards for ages! Many people have enjoyed that book and it doesn’t just sit on a shelf gathering dust.
I am just starting to play with multimedia and love the sticky tape trick!
Many of the links above did not go anywhere “access denied” or “could not be found”
**Please note this post is from 4 years ago so many of the links may not be current any longer.
-Heather
I get many of my books from Dollar Tree. They’re all shapes and sizes and great to use either as altered books or those that are repurposed into beautiful decor with hidden boxes and drawers. Garage sales are also a bargain.
Great idea from Darla Welch about using the Shorthand Text book pages. Thanks.
“I think I’ll look for the title of books or print my “summer Vacation 2011” on the spine, Would lok great on bookcase of ledge instead of dusty Photo albums
As I looked through your examples, I was thinking it could be fun to use one of my grandson’s favorite books of the current year to make a small album of photos that document the year.
This is fabulous and I cannot wait to start on my own. I think this is also a great gift idea for my older nieces! The value of something is in one’s eyes and hearts!
Crisi Hadley
well said!
Such cool ideas. I will look at my old books destined for the recycle bin with new eyes
I have many old books as I am an avid reader and now writer so old books I adore and as one rather money oriented person above said that it’s a waste rather than cashing in on the value of the book, ‘value’ and what someone classes as valuable is what it’s all about and imho the books I’ve made into albums or journals are priceless! No amount of money could part me with them post decorating! I love old books to be used for this purpose as I leave the outside of the book intact and only cover the title with my title and I love it. We are all different and our worth and values are all different, thank goodness! Could you imagine if we were ALL the same?! Noooo thank you! I’ll keep doing above with old books whilst you n you annnnd you, do what you want with them! It gives us ALL happiness so there ya go! Love from downunder. Xox thanks for sharing ladies. I love how we can all share our thoughts ideas and nobody picks on the other. Gotta love crafters way of thinking and hearts as we are all nice peoples. 🙂 🙂 🙂
The reason scrapbooking supplies are expensive is that they are acid free/ lignin free. While I love the artistic side of using old books, they would be best for junk journals. If you use photos in them, make sure they are only extra copies!
GREAT IDEA FOR RECYCLING, KEEPS OUR ENVIRONMENT CLEAN AND THESE ALSO GIVES MANY PEOPLE GREAT PLEASURE !! MY FAMILY LOVES THEM !! TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE SOOOO JUDGEMENTAL !! IF YE DONT LIKE IT, DONT DO IT !! LIFE GOES ON !! THANX SOOO MUCH FIR THE GREAT IDEAS !!
I have been rebuilding old scrapbooks for several years! They were all those horrible sticky books. I started with the 1940’s and I’m going all the was up to 1997, where I started my layout scrapping. I’m currently about 1/2 the way through 1991, and I’m still plugging along! I just turned 82, so time is not on my side! Anyway, I try to scrap every day. It feels so good to look through the new books and admire all the hard work! I’m hoping my 5 children and lots of grands and great grands & great great grands will enjoy the books someday! My advice is to keep on going, it is well worth it!