Summer is flying by, and with summer camps and classes over I’ve finally gotten the chance to learn something new myself. I have been waiting for weeks and wasn’t entirely sure I’d get the opportunity, but this past week I was one of the lucky few who got to take a new class in a new format – the bookmaking “staycation” at the Art Center.
But let’s back up a minute first. I also made a couple of new junk journals last month.
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The first is my newest daily journal, which I decided to collage on the outside. I also reduced the number of sections to 2 down from 3 because I never want to finish a journal before I’m itching for a new one anyway. I figured I’d just skip the internal conflict this time and just make a shorter book.
The second journal I made was for a friend. He’s a musician and needs a place to keep track of gig info, rehearsal schedules, set lists, expenses and whatnot. This one’s an altered book – a Reader’s Digest because the size is handy and their hard covers are usually worth the effort to clean up and then distress. I told my friend to pick out one he liked from Goodwill and then I gutted it before assembling the book block from my own materials. Then I had to stamp and stencil the heck out of it because… well, it needed it, of course.






I made lots of tuck spots in this one since my friend is perpetually collecting business cards of people who like his work and want to book him for a gig later on. Having a place to put those is essential, he told me. As far as style went, I focused on simplicity with this one – neutral colors and understated details help it feel more masculine than some of my other projects.
Overall I was happy with the construction except for my lack of planning on what to do with those gold fibers once I’d pulled them all through the spine. I ended up making a poofy knotted fringe, but if I had one regret it was that I didn’t have something heavy to tie on or thread that through – some beads or metal pieces would have made a nice chunky charm in lieu of that golden frufru puff.
Let’s treat the preceding photos as sort of “before” images – my books before I took the bookmaking staycation. Because not only did I get to learn a bunch of new techniques, but the information on why to use which materials and when to use which sort of binding method was invaluable. I also got to practice doing a few things *the right way* and brainstormed about bookmaking classes I might want to teach later on. **squee**
The first type of book we made was accordion style. For that we used a Rives BFK paper and cut the edges rather than leaving them deckled ( also made the case the exact same dimensions as the paper rather than cutting a margin so that the accordion will stand up better).
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This book was really cool to make and gives me inspiration about block printing the panels to fill it with content. I think there’s a fall class in linocut I need to take for that… Ah, but I digress.
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From there we made single signature and multi-signature books, both of them case bound. This gave me a chance to practice installing the book blocks and end papers as well as figure out how to line everything up properly. I also got to play around with a couple of different types of paper – decorative papers are all so different and behave differently when wet with glue!
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Next up was the Japanese stab binding, which made me happy that I’d picked out some cool Japanese script paper earlier in the week. I didn’t have a use in mind for it exactly when I bought it; I just wanted to use it in making a book. Now I want to make so many more! It’s worth mentioning that I came home after class that day and made a mini-book with different paper but the same type of binding. It was a lot of fun – and easier than it looks.
The last one we made was a leather bound soft book. That one’s still in progress though because I decided to up the level of difficulty by doing some intricate leather design work before I can even begin assembling the book. So I’ll have to show that one when it’s done.
However, I may have buried the lead here in that I was recently asked to make a baby book by a friend of a friend for her first grandchild. My first handmade book commission, and for such an occasion, too. What an honor!
But the honor also comes with a sense of responsibility. I wanted to make sure to use all of the best materials in this one – archival quality papers, inks, and glue – so that the memories they hold will last a lifetime. The book also needed to be well constructed for the same reason. When she told me what she had in mind, I felt like I’d taken the bookmaking class just in time! It gave me confidence that my construction methods and materials are strong enough now that I can make something this special for my client without worry.
I’m planning a separate post where I talk about how I made this book in more detail – including the envelope pattern I created that allows me to construct envelopes out of any paper I like! for now, I’ll leave these images, which will give you a glimpse at the work in progress.
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