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NewsletterBookbinding experiments and ideas
Happy Thursday to everyone! I am working on an artsy baby journal for a friend of mine and wanted to share a bit of my novice bookbinding learnings through the process. At times I feel like a kindergartner, because I’ve managed to make everything a bit sticky from the glue magically invading and spreading all over my creative workspace! Other notable learnings?
- Choose sturdy material – board for the covers and heavier weight paper for the pages
- Use a glue brush and wash it out before it hardens
- Glue spread onto the heavier surface seems to work better, less bubbles
- Precut, prepunch, pre-everything to size before moving to the glue phase…ooops
- Don’t try to punch through 12 heavy pages at the same time
- Measure out more than enough string for sewing, so you don’t have to add more mid-sewing
I also realized how much precision really matters for certain details of the finished project. For example, cut too close or too far and you get imperfect corners for the covers. Maybe I shouldn’t eyeball it!
The photo above also shows my experiment of using regular cardboard for the cover material, which is cool for the thickness, but very porous and seemingly easy to puncture and damage. It also didn’t help that my recycled shopping bag was totally wrinkled for this cover, but I liked the colors and pattern a lot. I created a bunch of different covers to experiment with the materials I have lying around the house. The itty bitty one you see below in the center is leather wrapped around a board and threaded together. That little prototype is really sparking ideas!
I’m not really that picky when it comes to creating art journals, but for a gift I want it to be as nice as possible. I did my best and here is the final product and inner pages. It’s a bit loose because I stitched each page separately to keep it flat and easy to spread out and draw on. Although I initially didn’t want super girly colors, it ended up sort of strawberry shortcake themed and I think it’s great for a baby girl!
Off to finish off my experiments and make more journals…for what I’m not sure yet…
Posted on February 4, 2010 at 10:59 am | bookbinding, work in progress
Hello fellow explorers and creative minds! My name is Linda, aka tortagialla - a nickname my adorable husband dubbed me meaning "yellow cake" in Italian. I'm your not-so-typical Californian girl who took the plunge and moved to the Tuscan hills of Italy. Now I'm living my dream designing, illustrating and crafting full-time. You can contact me via email linda [!at] tortagialla [!dot] com
Wow, this is just precious!!
Love the colors, the design, the binding, I love it all, it’s delish. By the way, I also love the lace framing your blog.
Really great job Linda.
Thanks Carmen! I really appreciate your comments…woohoo…I’m still experimenting…making more journals!
That looks so great! Lovely, really! I have similar precision problems with things like this too—I’m an estimating, eyeballing type of person, so I’ll just jump in with little planning and then find myself trying to creative think my way out of mistakes part way through. Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn’t, but I do always learn something in the process. The glue all over the place, really sounds like me! I do love rubber cement for it’s ability to rub off afterward!
Thanks so much! I’m glad you think it’s lovely…and yes, precision so important for the details. But I’ve always been sort of a messy at everything! Like you said, the important thing is that you learn something in the end…it’s the process! I might have to check out that rubber cement now!
I can’t even handle a glue stick without making a mess!
Your journal turned out so wonderful!!!
What a lucky momma and baby to receive this great gift!
Anxious to see what you do with the threaded leather idea…..
Hi Pam! We definitely have something in common, I make a mess all the time. Glad you like the journal, I think I’ll add some more finishing touches to it though…ribbon and such…hehe…
Stop the press, Linda……is that you handwriting???
Haha, I wish! I actually printed out those parts on the pages before binding them together. I have horrible penmenship – chicken scratch!
Yes…is that your calligraphy? Beautiful.
Hi Kirsty…I guess I fooled some folks. It’s a beautiful font called Burgues Script. I wish I had calligraphy skills!