Look what I made from scratch: a book! Last summer I took a course in bookmaking with Chicago’s Spudnik Press and I’m using the cold and quiet months of winter to re-indulge in this craft during my free time.

For Christmas my sister bought me a bookmaking kit from Hollander’s,  which is a famous company in the world of bookmaking. Think Sephora for makeup lovers, except this is for book arts. The kit comes with directions, paper, waxed thread, book cloth, book board, glues, and decorative paper.

I’m not going to lie, if I hadn’t had taken the bookmaking course I think I would have been a bit confused with just the directions provided. But, with the help of video tutorials on YouTube (thank you Sea Lemon!) and my class I was able to make a beautiful case bound book!

Here are some before pictures that show the process – it involves a lot of paper folding, sewing, gluing, and praying that you’ve lined everything up correctly.

Directions

You start by folding the individual sheets that will make up the pages of your book.  Later, you will punch holes in each to sew the “signatures” together with waxed thread. It sounds tedious but its relaxing and actually goes quite fast.

Next, to reinforce the sewn stitches, you use a very thick glue and later a special cloth to secure the book’s binding.

Finally, you work on compiling your book’s outer cover – this is the fun part where you can choose your own design elements.

Here is the finished product – I’m quite proud.

Any special bookmaking requests? I plan on giving these as personalized gifts once I get a few practice books under my belt 🙂

Do you have any hobbies or crafts that bring you joy?