Upcycled Bookbinding – Make Together

Join Edinburgh-based bookbinder Cass Barron for a welcoming, cross-generational bookbinding workshop celebrating creativity, reuse and making together as part of Dunblane Eco Fest. Designed for older children and their accompanying adults, this relaxed session invites you to learn side by side, supporting one another while collaborating with the wider group to create a unique upcycled journal in a memorable morning of shared making. We’d recommend this class for children aged 10 and over, but enthusiasm is as much of a factor as age and we would welcome keen crafters of a younger age too.

We will begin by working together to create decorative papers using recycled and remnant materials. This playful introduction encourages experimentation through low-tech mark-making techniques using simple tools and found objects that can easily be recreated at home. You will then learn decorative binding stitches to assemble a collection of hand-bound notebooks, incorporating your handmade papers into the covers, and if you wish, stitching found objects into the spine. Along the way, you will be introduced to Japanese stab binding, transforming pre-loved materials into something beautiful, practical and entirely your own.

Your finished sketchbooks can become mini photo albums, scrapbooks, travel journals or everyday notebooks, and they also make thoughtful, personal gifts. The workshop aims to inspire ongoing creativity, giving you the skills and confidence to continue bookbinding at home and to create meaningful objects using what you already have around you.

The workshop price includes participation for one adult and one child, and we recommend a one-to-one adult to child ratio so that you can fully support one another as you learn new techniques together. In the spirit of community and shared making, both adult and child participants are expected to take an active part in the creative process throughout the session.

This workshop forms part of Dunblane Eco Fest and has been supported by the Doune and Dunblane Wind Farm Community Benefit Fund, helping to subsidise ticket prices and make creative, sustainable learning more accessible to the community.

All materials are included but you are welcome to bring along any papers from your own collection that you would like to use in your book – artwork, old maps, wrapping paper etc. work well.

About Your Tutor

“I have a background in Fine Art Sculpture, which is were I first discovered bookbinding – making my own sketchbooks out of whatever was to hand so I could get the sculptures I wanted to make out of my head, onto paper and into the world.

Driven by a desire to help people explore their own creativity I went on to complete a Masters in Art Museum & Gallery Education, which led to me working as an Art Educator at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Artist in Residence at the Girvan Lantern Festival and taking on the role of Development Officer with Voluntary Arts Scotland, supporting community groups of all shapes and sizes to develop and deliver creative activities – all the while teaching myself bookbinding and running bookbinding workshops.

In January 2019 I took the leap and went fully freelance and set up Bookbinding with Cass, which enabled me to put together a dynamic programme of creative classes and work in partnership with some fantastic community organisations, sharing my love of bookbinding with people from a range of backgrounds.”