I made another book! Now I have a problem though… It’s so pretty I don’t want to write in it. The paper is embossed and sparkly. Some of the sparkle rubs off too.

My parents came to visit our house for the first time last week. My mom had recently finished an art class on book binding, so I asked if she could teach me how. Here is the result! 

For my book, we kept it simple to save time. My mom got all fancy and put a bookmark in hers. I really liked book binding because it was something very simple to do without a lot of expensive materials. We started early on Thursday morning after breakfast and maybe an hour the next day finishing them up.

Normally I research a hobby to death, buy everything I need, then do it, but this time it was a little backwards for me. It still doesn’t change my habits though, I still looked up a ton of information and videos after my parents left. By far one of the most useful resources for bookbinding was Sea Lemon’s Youtube channel.

The way my mom and I did ours was similar to the first video below. We used illustration board instead of book board, spray adhesive instead of glue, and made the covers about 1/4 inch larger than the signatures. We also didn’t cut the corners of the cover paper like in the video, but I think my next book I will.

Of course there’s a subreddit for everything: /r/bookartssection which is where I found this tutorial Japanese Stab Binding Tutorial: Marionette

Now to figure out what to write in them!