There have been complaints....

...from the creative writing department, that the handmade book department has been slacking off recently. So I have been in full production the last couple of days! First I had a rummage in my special card bag (any nice card get put in there rather than the recycling bin) and made the first couple of books with old greetings cards using the Japanese binding method that I shared with you here. The third is a Godiva chocolate box and is more of a file than a book and fastens with fancy gold ribbon.

Then the creative writing department requested books to make into manuals for all his beasts. Since he has got hooked on the beast quest books he has been making up his own beasts. So I printed off a pile of sheets, (you can download at the bottom of the post) and got to work. The photos are a bit dark because I did this in the evening and the example shown is just plain paper but you'll get the general idea.

You need a few sheets of printer paper and a piece of card which is about 2 cm higher and 5cm wider than your printer paper. Place the printer paper on the card like in the image shown so that there is an extra wide margin of card on the right.

Now fold the printer paper in half and also make a crease in the card, align the creases and staple the paper and card together. I like to have the open ends of the staple pushed through to the outside of the book.

Cover the spine and staples with MT tape. Then fold the extra section of card over to make a flap.

 For the first couple of books I punched holes then used reinforcers but then I ran out so I used a strip of MT tape and then punched in the holes. Fold the flap shut and make a small mark through the holes so you know where to align your string to.

Open the flap and on the front cover stick down a piece of string, the centre of the string should be between the marks that you made. I found MT tape doesn't hold very well for this so I used a piece of duck tape and added some MT tape for decoration.

Thread the string through the holes and you are done! If you feel like being fancy, add a bit of tape to the end of the string. Send the books off to the creative department along with your invoice (wishful thinking there!).

Of course, once you have made one, you will be hooked and you will soon be knocking loads of the out, it's a good job they don't take very long to make.

Here is a sneak peak of one of the beast pages, wahhhhh scarrrry!!

Beast Book Pages