Homemade Books - Book Binding

Homemade Books - Book Binding - Lots of pictures

I've been playing around with learning how to bind my own books. It started with wanting to make a gratitude journal, rather than spending a lot of money on a new one. I found an old book cover, then looked up ways to bind a book, read up on the coptic stitch, and then found out some of my own books are bound using that method.

Finished it today (only took about an hour of my time) and then began thinking about making by hand, some hard copies of my books in general. That one is percolating. Here is my gratitude journal. I just have to decorate it. I plan to make more (because it's fun!) and will list them for sale. The size will depend on what old covers I've found. As well as the paper.

I'm also making little ones and will give those away. If you want a little one, just comment below. If I don't have an email, leave it so I can contact you. :)

The book this cover came from, lol. I was going to use this dust jacket, but then went meh.

The pretty fabric that I used to cover the binding.

How it looks open. You'll see the edge of the fabric isn't perfect. I stared at it a while and went, nah. I like the rustic and non-perfect aspects of things like that. When I do homemade, I want it to resemble a homemade item. Rustic is what I go for. Hence my Old World Charm - Modern Living brand name.

Testing my papers to decide how much I wanted to crease them, and how many I needed. In this case I went a bit less than the width of the base book. That's so that if I insert anything that thickens the page, it won't be as big of deal.

Finished! Now, as you can see, I didn't waste time to trim the edges flat. I like it like that. So rustic and nice. Who wants perfect? I found the book that I have that matches this. Below. Anne Rice's Merrick.

My inside cover. I went with just another piece of the paper I used inside, which meant it's not thick enough to hide the fabric over the binding, but again, meh.

I used a dark purple thread for the contrast and not only does it go with the grey cover, but I love the color.

Now below I have shots of some of my professionally done books for comparison.

Louis L'Amour's Flint

Cool leather book, huh?

They used a ivory-ish toned thread to hide amongst the pages.

Here's the Anne Rice Merrick book. Edges like I did.

And the binding for it.

Below is the small ones I've been working on as well. Little pocket books with recycled material. The pink is a magazine advertisement! lol.

Cute!

I did the inside cover for this one so it'd look wrapped. The inside is made from a free notepad from Boys Club of America that my mom got for free for her donation I believe. If anyone wants that one, just ask and give me your email.

And then here is the link to my personal one that I made. http://instagram.com/p/l5R_JqqiA6/

I think I'm having too much fun. I do these while I watch TV.

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