Project 50 - Week 6 - Concept

Project 50 – Week 6
Concept: Deco Books
 
This week I’m combining both a scrapbook-related item and photography!  This week I am going to talk about (and show off) Deco Art Books!  All the Deco books that I will be showing were hand-crafted by Theresa.  Artistic Deco books, a close cousin to “Friendship Books” (or FBs), are in essence, small handmade books that are decorated and customized by people all over the world.

A Deco book starts with a basic theme, sometimes vague like “Vintage Sailors” or “Tree of Life” and sometimes very specific like “Steven King Books” or “Fluffy Bunnies”.  The creator makes a small book (around 4-10 small pages for easy mailing) and decorates the cover (front and back) in the chosen theme and designates who the book is being made for (either the original creator or  someone else - making it a really unique and interesting gift).  There is no restriction on what can be used; fabric, paper, ribbons, photos, textiles, brads, etc – but it’s important to remember that this book will be need to travel via the various global mail systems, so try and keep weight in mind.  On the back cover, Theresa likes to include her name and contact information.  Once the book is started, it is packaged up and shipped off to the next artist to decorate one of the pages!  How one selects who to mail the Deco can be almost as much fun as making it in the first place!  Perhaps you just send it to a friend and ask them (once they are done decorating a page) to send it to another friend, et cetera, until all the pages are filled.  Once all of the pages have been decorated, the last 'signer' ships the Deco back to the person it was made for (e.g. creator or giftee) who then gets to experience everyone’s artistic interpretation of the theme.

There are also many Deco groups on the Internet with folks from all over the world who are looking to trade Deco books.  Lastly, if you are feeling really brave and adventurous, you can send the Deco book to someone random and hope that they continue with the fun (if you decide you want to try this route, I might suggest you send it to someone in an art-related field with a short page of instructions on what to do with it – otherwise they might be really confused!). Deco books are a great way to connect with other artist as well as share your work in ways (and places) that you would never have thought of.  It’s also fine if you want to start a bit smaller, such as a local craft faire or just your friends and family.  

I like to think of Deco books as small little “Art Passports” that get to go on interesting and amazing trips and when they get back they can share their journey with you via other folk’s art.  

If you are interested in sharing a Deco with us or receiving one, just drop us an email and you can get involved!  

Enjoy!