The garden book
Posted: October 7, 2025 Filed under: Handmade book | Tags: Handmade book 8 Comments
Back at the end of winter my daughter asked if I would like to make her a garden book, as in a book to record what’s in our garden, what is planted where and when it blooms. She wanted to record what is happening in our garden from month to month. I really enjoy making books so I said yes.
Ideally I would have provided the book at the beginning of spring. Fast forward two seasons to the end of summer and I finally finished the book!
She created a scale plan of our two tier flower garden and printed it several times to be included in the first signature of the garden book. The pages are drawing paper, the covers are heavy cardboard covered in vintage song pages and floral napkins. The vintage song pages came from the Paling’s Annual No 23 of National and Patriotic Songs. The price on the front is 1/6 and it was published in 1914.
Naturally I chose a couple of pages featuring flower related songs. I used the coptic binding method I learned in an online workshop taught by Ali Manning. I wholeheartedly recommend Ali’s workshops; I have completed a few and will be doing more!
Even though I took a long time to deliver the requested book my daughter has been taking photos and notes during the spring and summer. You can see a glimpse of the garden in the final photo below.
Heather Telford 
Very nice garden book. You are very talented and so is your daughter. Karen from Wisconsin Faith is believing that the outcome will be what it should be, no matter what it is.~Colette Baron-Reid~
I was thinking of you this afternoon and wondering if you were well since I hadn’t seen any blog posts in a while. I’m glad you are doing well and this is a wonderful project and such a treasure for your daughter! The cover is beautiful and I predict that it will become one of your daughter’s most treasured possessions!
Very nice! Heather, you always inspire me, thank you for taking the time post these. Hoping you had a nice summer!
A beautiful garden Heather and now you have made a wonderful book for your daughter to record it all in, and so brilliantly put together and the cover is such a pretty design. I’m so pleased to see you back after a long break and was hoping that all was well with you. Hopefully we will see more of you now that summer is over. x
This is beautiful Heather! Thanks for sharing the book and the binding information. Did you decoupage the cover of the book?
Thank you Teresa, I glued the music paper to copy paper then one layer of the floral napkin over the top of the music paper. I guess that is a type of decoupage.
Thank you!
Great work Heather!! This is a beautiful book for your daughter to record the happenings of her garden. Her garden is gorgeous too! xx