My Auntie Ruth … wow. She has the best ideas!
The last time she was here, she brought out a couple of paper lunch bags that had been folded in half and stapled together with a long stapler. So what, right? So EVERYTHING!
Once she explained what it was for, I got really excited. She uses them with her grade 3 students to make ‘Me’ books, with pages about their families and favourite things and such. And what makes these originally non-descript paper-bag books so marvelous?
All the pockets and flaps and potential.
First of all, you can’t get much cheaper. Paper-bags are super cheap, and you can use whatever fancy paper, stickers, or craft supplies you have on hand to embellish them. When you fold and staple the bags, you end up with two side pockets, and two secret flaps, but once you slice open the back two sections, you end up with two top pockets too. Swoon! So many places to tuck treasures!
And the application for these books is endless. The first two we made were birthday cards, one for Jack and one for Auntie Sam.
But you could make ‘Me’ books, they could be used for scavenger hunts, story books, comics, party craft/favours, somewhere to collect Important Things that go together. We decorated the pages with illustrations and love notes and stickers and fancy paper, and tucked things like hand-made bookmarks and lottery tickets and tattoos into the pockets. The results are utterly enchanting.
ps. If you don’t have a long stapler (we don’t) and don’t want to acquire one (not sure if we do or not), your local library likely has one (ours does) and you can take a bunch of bags and make up several paper-bag books at a time (we did).
