When you're as creative as Greenville librarian Suzanne Metcalf, you can see possibilities in scraps of lace, broken jewelry, bits of ribbon — and even the discarded dust jackets from hardback books.

Suzanne creates unique gift bags by recycling the heavy paper covers that protect books, trimming them with odds and ends to make useful works of art.

Jane Hudson/Her magazine (ENLARGE)

Greenville librarian Suzanne Metcalf recycles book dust jackets into lovely gift bags by cutting, sewing and gluing them. Then she embellishes them with cast-off items.

She got the idea several years ago when she was working at Georgia Southern University. Suzanne noticed that the decorative book covers were being removed from the hardback books before the books were placed on the library shelves. She had been thinking about recycling them in some way for an Earth Day project when she saw a student at the circulation desk sporting a bag made of foil Capri Sun juice pouches. Inspiration struck!

"I took several book jackets home and tried to make a bag. The first was a total disaster. You've never seen such a mess in your life," said Suzanne, who is now the interlibrary loan department's document delivery coordinator at East Carolina University's Joyner Library.

"But I've always loved working with paper, since I was a little kid and I had paper dolls," said Suzanne, a native of Rhode Island who attended the North Carolina School of the Arts for costume design. "And I like to solve mysteries and resolve problems, so I didn't get discouraged. Earth Day was looming and I wanted to have something to display. I kept trying, and finally I found my pattern.

"Then I tried to use staples to create the bag, and then glue, but they fell apart when I tried to use them. I figured out sewing worked best."

Suzanne completed a variety of bags and put them on a display table for Earth Day. Much to her surprise, they were a huge hit. "The faculty members and students wanted to buy them!" she recalls.

Suzanne said she doesn't like to sell her bags because she doesn't invest much money in the craft at all — and she doesn't feel right making money from her God-given talent.

She scours flea markets and yard sales for things to decorate the bags with, often picking up broken or stained items for pennies. Friends bring her buttons and bits and stuff, which she puts to good use. All she purchases for the craft is hot glue, chenille stems or ribbon for the handles, and tissue paper to fill the bag.

"God gave me this idea," Suzanne said. "He tapped me on the shoulder and told me how to do this. He gave me the talent to create these bags. It doesn't seem right to sell them."

She said she often contributes bags to silent auctions that raise money for charity, including her favorite cause, The Humane Society. And she displays the book-jacket bags at Joyner Library, where library director Larry Boyer can be counted as one of her fans; Boyer even brought her a box filled with book jackets recently.

"I enjoy it so much," she said. "My hands can't work fast enough to keep up with all the ideas in my head. I see specific pieces and I know exactly how I want to use them. They speak to me.

"My favorite thing to do, when I have duplicate book jackets, is to cut out pieces of one jacket and mount them on the other, to give the bag a three-dimensional effect."

When Suzanne isn't at work, she can usually be found at the dining room table in the Greenville townhouse she shares with her husband, Tim, cutting up and reassembling book jackets while she listens to classical music and one of her four cats naps at her feet.

"I'm in my own little world. I get so involved that I forget to eat dinner or go to bed."

*Refer to "Making Gift Bags from Book Jackets" photo gallery to see some of Suzanne's gift bags.

How to make a book jacket gift bag

Suzanne Metcalf shares the following directions for turning discarded book jackets into gift bags.

Supplies: book jackets, sewing machine (if you have one), scissors, paper edgers, pinking shears, assorted thread colors, hot glue gun and glue sticks, ruler, pen, single hole punch, ribbons, chenille stems (pipe cleaners), scrap cardboard in a variety of thicknesses (gift cards, corrugated, etc.) and decorative odds and ends such as silk flowers, seashells, broken jewelry, etc.

1. Select your favorite book jacket.

2. Close the jacket as you would the book and fold along the length of the binding. Press the book flaps together, making sure they are the same size. Some flaps are uneven. The flaps will become the sides of the bag, so you want them to be the same width. Trim or refold the flaps accordingly.

3. Cut the BACK flap along its fold and set aside.

4. Cut the jacket in half along the binding fold. Set aside the back cover.

5. Keep the front cover's uncut flap folded under in its original position. With the cover and its flap pressed together, begin sewing along the outer right-side folded edge of the front cover from top to bottom about a quarter of an inch in. Slow, steady basted stitches helps keep thread from snagging. Back stitching is optional, or you can tie off loose threads by hand. (If you don't have a sewing machine, fold the cover and flap together about a quarter of an inch in. Turn the cover over, open the flap and run a thin line of hot glue into the fold you just made. Press the fold back together; run a ruler down the folded paper to help it adhere firmly.)

6. Take the back flap that you cut off earlier and match it to the left side of the cover, with the right sides facing out. Sew (or glue) the same way. You now have the front and sides of the bag put together.

7. Now take the back cover and sew on to each of the side flaps with right sides facing out. The body of the bag is now ready for its bottom piece.

NOTE: As with sewing fabric, the paper will have raw seams and finished seams. The raw seams are being sewn to face outside since the stiff paper bag can't be turned right-side out.

Sewn paper is not as forgiving as fabric. It's difficult to back out of a mistake and start over again. The needle punctures the paper and often rips if you try to pull the thread out. With a little care and creativity it can be sewn or glued again and mistakes can be covered with trims and decorations.

8. The bottom is made out of another book jacket, decorative scrap-booking paper, wallpaper or any other pliable material. Measure the horizontal dimensions of your bag. Most bags turn out to be approximately 6 inches across for the front and back, 3 inches each for the sides. The material you use for the bottom must be larger than those dimensions — so it will be be large enough to fit the bottom of the bag with enough overhang to glue around the outside of the bag.

9. On the wrong side of the paper bottom, mark the dimensions of the bag in pen or pencil and connect with lines using a ruler to form a rectangle. Then measure and draw lines out on each side of the box so that you have tabs. Make the tabs as long as you want to, drawn straight out from and only as wide as the box. The box will now be a rectangular t-shape. (The box is the very bottom of the bag. The t-tabs will be glued up and around the sides of the bag.) Cut out the bottom and fold in each tab over on the wrong side for easier placement and gluing.

10. Place the bottom wrong-side up on your work surface with tabs sticking straight up. Fit the body of the bag down inside the tabs, making certain it is a good fit.

11. Choose one tab and spread hot glue on its wrong (inner) side. Working quickly, push the tab into place against the outside of the bag with one hand — while using the other hand to press from inside the bag. Continue pressing for a few seconds to secure the tab in place. Glue the rest of the tabs in place all around the bag in the same way.

12. Use a hand-held hole punch to create holes for a handle at the top of the bag. Place the hole punch down over the paper as far as it will go. Holes made too near the top can rip the paper when inserting handles. Either measure where you want to place the holes or simply punch freestyle. To carry the bag bucket-style, punch one hole in each side flap. For the classic way with two handles, punch two holes each front and back.

13. Select colorful thin pieces of cardboard (greeting cards work well) and cut into 1-inch squares (or any shape you prefer), enough for each hole that you just punched. Punch holes into the middle of each cardboard piece. Swirl a small amount of glue around the hole on the wrong side of the square. Quickly glue the square over the hole inside the bag, matching up holes. If the cardboard is thin enough, you may glue it to the bag and punch through both the square and the bag, saving a step. Securing the holes with a back-up prevents the handles from ripping out of the bag when in use.

14. Select ribbons, chenille stems, decorative trim, wire or anything else that can be strung through the holes for the handles. Measure and cut your preferred length of the handle. Tie a knot in one end. From the inside of the bag, thread the handle through the outside of the bag and back into the hole. Tie off. Chenille stems and wires can simply be inserted through the hole and twisted around.

15. Measure the outside bottom of the completed bag. Cut a piece of heavy-duty/thick cardboard the same size and place down inside the bag. This supports the gift bag to help keep it from buckling on the bottom when an item is placed inside and the bag is carried by the handles. Use colorful cardboard — or glue on a piece of decorative paper that has been cut to fit the cardboard.

16. Decorating the bag with embellishments is optional. Leave it plain for a clean look or decorate it with items that coordinate with the title on the book jacket.

*See "Making Gift Bags from Book Jackets" photo gallery for photo references.