Oso+Bean has a new product: recycled / up-cycled antique dictionary prints. They are really beautiful and unique, but what the heck are they? A Dictionary Print is an antique dictionary page that has been up-cycled /printed over, to become an art print.

The rough edges, ages spots, and sometimes stains from leaves found pressed between the pages of the books, are part of the character of these prints. These flaws help tell the history of that book and are so much of what we love about recycled prints.

The dictionaries we use are at least 100 years old, with most from the 1860s, and sometimes predate the US Civil War. Our art prints are made from pages of broken and torn books and given new lives, up-cycled as artwork for your walls. We buy our books at book auctions, online and direct from estates. We keep our eyes peeled for books that are in very poor shape and typically headed to the trash.

Every print we make is completely unique, because of the unique history of each page and each dictionary. We carefully print images from our vast design library onto the sometimes-brittle paper.  Our semi-opaque print method/superimposition allows the type and images from the antique pages show through. Because the old book papers are so dry and brittle we choose to fuse our images on top, rather than use ink printers. Ink is just absorbed into the papers like a sponge and can tend to bleed over time. Because of this, many people like to frame our prints sandwiched between glass to be able to see the back of the page as well as the “front” with the printed image.

We use broken and torn books and give them new life as wall art. We rescue books we use  have become too decayed to be used or repaired, so we make sure they continue to live as incredible wall art. Truly the epitome of one person’s trash becoming another’s treasure that will live on for decades more.

Prints vary from 8”x10” to 9”x12”, but images will all fit within an 8”x10” frame. The rough edges, ages spots, and sometimes stains from leaves found pressed between the pages of the books, are part of the character of these prints. These flaws help tell the history of that book and are so much of what we love about up-cycled / recycled prints.