If you are a book fan, perhaps you would like to try making your own?
When you pick up a book, whether is is a novel you are planning to read or a handcrafted journal you are planning to write your thoughts in, do you ever give thought to how it is made? Me neither… at least until I got my hands on this Little Book of Book Making: Timeless Techniques and Fresh Ideas for Beautiful Handmade Books
It was fascinating paging through this book. Two-thirds of this book is full of inspiration in the form of pictures, commentary, and information from bookmakers around the world. This section of the book is broken down into 4 different chapters, each of which covers a different aspect of book making.
Two of these chapters cover bindings. The first shows and explains different samples of folded bindings. The second features a variety of designs and options for sewn bindings. While these chapters don’t offer tutorials, they do present amazing photos and information about each photo and it’s creator.
The third chapter covers different page and cover treatments. The pages of a book do not have to be limited to plain piece of paper, whether they are blank or printed with pictures and text. This chapter presents a collection of techniques that add color, texture, and/or character to the pages and covers of handmade books. There are so many unique ideas that I found myself paging through this section twice!
Chapter four in this book is dedicated to experimental packaging of books. You might think this is referring to different ways to wrap up a book, but it is actually talking about non-traditional ways to cover a book. You can browse through pictures of books — or rather, works or art — that are ‘packaged’ in tree bark, fabric, wood, and even sea shells. My mouth fell open more than once at the creativity displayed in some of the book coverings in this chapter.
By the time you get to the fifth chapter in this book, you will be more than ready to try your hand at making your own book. This chapter gives you advice and instruction to make your own book. It starts off listing and explaining different tools and materials that are needed and then offers several step-by-step tutorials. Learn how to make everything form an instant book using simple paper folding techniques to a bound book with a fancy (yet easy-to-make) woven cover. There are projects that will help you try your hand at many of the books styled shared in the first four chapters of this book.
As a crafter, I wasn’t sure how much this book would interest me since two-thirds of it contained no tutorial and projects to try, but I actually found myself spending a lot of time looking at the creations and reading all of the material provided about each technique and bindery. From now on, I am sure I will think of this book every time I pick up any other book! Honestly, I never realized there were so many creative facets to book making.
Disclosure: A review copy of this book was provided by the publisher. No further compensation was given and all opinions are my own. As noted above, this post contains affiliate links. See my disclosure policy for details.
