Creative Bookbinding

A guide to hand book-binding.

This volume is packed with inspirational ideas that are highly original, including a college folder made from a pair of jeans, an elegant wedding album covered with beautiful silk flowers, and a garden notebook complete with miniature spade and fork.

From zines you can fold in a minute to luxurious leather journals and sumptuous sketchbooks, How to Make Books will walk you through the easy basics of bookmaking. Whether you’re a writer, a scrapbooker, a political activist, or a postcard collector, let book artist Esther K. Smith be your guide as you discover your inner bookbinder. Using foolproof illustrations and step-by-step instructions, Smith reveals her time-tested techniques in a fun, easy-to-understand way.

In this accessible collection of creative projects, Rachel Hazell shares exciting paper crafting techniques to develop your bookbinding skills. After explaining the tools and materials needed, Rachel takes you through each project with step-by-step instructions. Different techniques for cutting and folding are demonstrated, and, once you are happy with the various techniques, you will then begin to bind your own books with stitches such as ladder, dash and chain. Projects include The Slit Book, A Concertina with Pockets and The Three-Hole Pamphlet Stitch, which can then be developed further to create unique and personal handmade notebooks, books and keepsakes that are not only fun and satisfying to make, but also make wonderful gifts. So whether you have already tried your hand at bookbinding or are a complete beginner, Rachel's knowledge and passion will inspire you to explore the many possibilities of bookart.

Bookmaking is one of today's fastest-growing crafts, and this on-the-page gallery presents the unlimited potential of the form, from leather-tooled covers and handmade papers to exotic bindings. The talented contributors include Jeanne Germani, David Hodges, Laura Wait, and a host of other artists. With nearly 100 selections taken from thebest-selling 500 Handmade Books, this pocket-sized book will delight handmade-book devotees "

Each project in this book combines bookbinding with a specific craft such as quilting, jewelry making, or polymer clay, and offer levels of expertise: basic, novice, and expert. Illustrated step-by-step instructions and photographs demonstrate how to construct the cover pages, and a unique binding technique, easy enough for a beginner to master. Each project also features two other versions with the same binding geared to those with more or less experience. The novice version is for those who have no knowledge of the craft and want shortcuts, but love the look. For the quilter's book, for example, vintage quilt pieces become the covers so all that's needing in the binding. Or if you're interested in wool felting use an old sweater. This offers great opportunities for upcycling. The expert version is for those who have a great deal of knowledge and proficiency of a certain craft - the master art quilter, for example. For this version, an expert guest artist has created the cover and the author has created the binding. This offers yet another creative opportunity - the collaborative project. Since crafters often get involved with round-robins and other shared endeavors, this will show them yet another way to combine their skills. No other craft book offers the possibilities and challenges that Adventures in Bookbinding does. Readers will return to it again and again to find inspiration and ideas.

Creative hand bookbinding, detailed in an accessible and comprehensive manual.