Stress Relief Recipe Book

Found some time this weekend to de-stress and what better way than delving into one of those “for later” piles. This particular pile consisted of a menagerie of brown paper bags (and the envelopes they were mailed-in). They were accompanied by notes, quotes, dyed papers, hand made paper, ribbons, and on and on, etc.  

These bits of mail have been coming-in at wonderfully random intervals for maybe 2 months. Now it is time to bind the collection into the Stress Relief Recipe Book it was meant for. To the bag full of bits of mail I also added: ruler, pencil, x-acto blade (and scissors), ice-pic, elmers (and other glues), thick string, wax candle (used it to wax the string), thick-blunt needle, and cardboard.

*for anyone trying this out for the first time - go ahead and make your life simpler by having the inserts all be the same measurements (or close to it).

First there was extensive Pinterest and Google searches for DIY paper bag books, but those mostly consisted of hole punched-ribbon-tied endeavors..and I wanted something more ‘book-like’. So I set out to wax some cotton thread and to teach myself how to bind pages together.  It is much harder than it looks.

Using the ice-pic and ruler I made punctures at 1 inch intervals. Then sewed the brown bag pages one by one. Inserted an envelope here and there, as well as some stray sheets for flare. because the pieces I had to work with were of various sizes the sewing process was not as straight forward as it could have been. 

  

Going forward I will be using the book to continue collecting de-stressing activity samples, ideas, quotes, etc.  

Go ahead put together your own book of stress relieving recipes!