Any handmade book ideas?

Handmade Book Design Ideas

• Answer:

  Book construction is simple technology. Books consist of soft inner pages, protective front and back covers and a spine to hold it all together. The parts can be bound together by stapling, sewing or gluing. A book can be so simple that a child can make one, or it can be an intricate work of art. Center-Bound Paperback Paperback picture books for children are often center-bound stapled books. An easy version can be constructed using typing paper and tagboard. Fold typing paper in half, matching the short ends. Crease each center fold firmly. Cut a rectangle of tag board, just slightly larger than the typing paper. Fold it in half, then open it. Open the folded sheets of paper, place them in a stack on top of the tag board. Use paper clips to hold the assembly firmly together. Turn it face down on the plate of a long-armed library stapler, position the staple point over the crease in the tag board, and staple the entire stack together. Hand-Sewn Scrapbooks During the 1920s in central Missouri, money was scarce for many families and people learned to improvise. One of their improvisations was to make hand-stitched books filled with hand-lettered recipes as a gift for new brides. Heavy paper would be saved from paper bags or wrapping paper, and the pages was often trimmed pages from a Big Chief Tablet. Big Chief Tablets were about the same size as a modern legal pad. The writing sheets were wide-lined pages made of coarse wood pulp. Five or six pages were folded in half, matching the short ends together. A cover the same size as a full sheet of paper, was then cut from a brown paper bag or heavy wrapping paper. The cover was folded, and the pages fitted inside. The spine edge was then stitched together using a square binding stitch. To make a binding stitch, thread a sharp darning needle with coarse thread or string -- the kind that comes on large sacks of cat food works very well. Insert the needle from the underside of the book at the top end. Pull the thread through the cover and pages and out the front, leaving three or four inches of string free on the backside of the cover. Loop the string around the spine of the book, and pull the thread up through the same hole again. Next, move the point of the needle about three inches down from the thread exit on the front, and push it through cover and pages, pulling it out the back. Loop the thread around, and push it up through the second hole. Continue in this fashion, alternating front and back, till you reach the end of the spine. Tuck the beginning and end strings under the end stitches, and secure it with a drop of glue. This technique can be used with more modern materials, such as creamy art paper pages, a construction paper cover and crochet thread. They make fine recipe books, photograph albums or memory scrap books. Gummed Tablets Use a paper cutter to trim a stack of paper so that the ends are even. Make a tagboard cover the correct size to cover the front, back and spine of the stack. Crease the tagboard to create the front, back and spine areas. Brush one edge of the papers with a flexible glue. Press the tagboard cover against the sticky glue. Wooden Covers Thicker volumes need sturdy covers. A lovely photo album or memory book can be made by using good quality art paper for the pages and thin masonite sheets for the front and back boards. Cut a narrow strip of masonite the length of the book and use a piano hinge to fasten it to a larger board to form a front or back cover. Clamp the covers to the pages, using C-clamps to keep them from moving. Drill through the narrow strips and the intervening pieces of paper. Secure the cover and pages by sliding slender bolts through the holes, and adding the threaded nuts on the end. The boards can be covered with cloth or the wood can be woodburned or painted.