Making Books Into Purses

I'm sure you're all aware of the craze going around right now of making a hardback book into a purse. I hadn't really thought about it's possibilities or potential until my friend Michelle asked if I wanted to go shopping with her to search for some candidates for the process! She sent me a few ideas of purses she'd seen:

From Etsy seller bibliobags

From Cosmo Cricket Blog

I like the idea of having a sturdy purse from the hardback book's frame, but I especially like the idea of having a sturdy type of case I can use as an idea sketchbook (the 2nd one).

After about 10-15 minutes of looking through books though, I realized something; I'm apparently a little picky when it comes to picking out a book to use for the sole intent of ripping out the pages and using the frame alone!! That and I'm kind of cheap and seeing as how the really nice ones were either really old (aka falling apart and/or printed decades ago) and/or really expensive, I couldn't bear the though of taking them apart to make a purse out of!

Therefore, I'm kinda glad I found the below 2 books, one in the kid's section for $5 (left) and one on the clearance shelf for $1 (right). The one on the right is actually written by one of the author's I normally read anyways, Kim Harrison, so I figured I'd go ahead and read it, THEN I'd tear it apart! I might try to see what adding other things to the front would look like and what options are best (between decoupaging, embossing, etc) but would be a good candidate for my idea book?

The reason I like the kid's book though is for the awesome images inside! I'm not sure I'll be able to use the book frame itself since it's a little on the small side, but check out the art inside!!:

I can totally see using these images for resin pendants, decoupaging, maybe even scrapbooking?? The possibilities are actually pretty endless!! I'll definitely have to make copies of the pages though first before I use any just because they're so awesome!!

Once I play around with these guys though, I'll show you guys what I come up with. But what about you guys? Have any of you converted a book into a purse? If not a purse, have you used hardback books for any other type of upcycling or repurposing projects? Let me know in the comments!

Craft ya later!