Books are My Treasure

As promised yesterday I am sharing more Eileen Hull play!

My apologies for a long post but I hope it will be informative and inspiring!

I have been so inspired by my lovely friend Jenny Marple's beautiful hardbound books I just wanted to have a go. It is not easy! and takes quite a bit of practice to get everything the right size and stuck down correctly, but along with a video link from Jenny for the stitching and studying the tutorial she shared for the Funkie Junkie Challenge Blog HERE I am delighted with the books I have made and ended up with three which were just perfect to put inside my first go playing with the Treasure Box die. 

So thank you SO much Jenny - your work is always inspiring and I love how clear and straight forward your tutorials are.

So to start with the box:

I have covered the box with some Stamperia papers and a few embellishments. I was more interested in the actual putting together of the box at this stage it being my first attempt. As these papers were sitting on my desk from a previous project they got pulled into action again!

The box is a lovely size and I know there are going to be numerous ways of using and decorating it.

I got some hinges from our local Ironmongers and thankfully the screw holes were not too large and so were capable of being used with brads.

And so to the books! I just LoVE them!

Properly stitched signatures which are then glued into place.

Early attempts required a little extra paper to cover where the size of my end papers were wrong!

But I couldn't help using these wonderful Stamperia papers - it really doesn't matter how you cut them or match them, they just look fabulous.

The three books nestle into the box beautifully.

And because the signatures are stitched they lie flat for note taking.

So I hope you want to know more as to how I made the books.

As Jenny had done I used the Notebook die to cut my mountboard and then cut the spine to separate it from the covers. I then used a piece of the Stamperia papers to cover the mountboard. A basic board book which given the gap between the covers and the spine folds into a book perfectly. For those of you who come to my workshops in Shetland this is the basic book we made at the Gulberwick weekend.

And next the stitching of the signatures. Jenny had linked to a very good video in one of her blog posts and it really is superb in terms of learning how to do simple signature stitching. You don't have to worry about the knots on the outside as these will eventually be covered up. Click the link HERE to go to DIY Kettle Stitch Bookbinding by Sea Lemon. I have used papers cut from an A4 135gm sketch book - it was only £1.49 for 60 pages so quite a bargain.

Sea Lemon also has other great book binding videos,  but this one on what to do with the stitched signatures is also brilliant. Click the link HERE to go to DIY Text Block. As she suggests in the video I have caught my signatures in a small piece of cardstock.

A little glue is dragged across the stitched edge of the first and last signature.

This allows you to place a folded piece of cardstock which attaches the signatures to the board book.

It all looks so neat !!!! ... this was the third one ....... the others were not so neat!

The spine of the signatures is then glued to the spine of the base book. It helps if you have the same width of signatures as the book spine .... my first attempts were a little too narrow and I ended up with not enough card to attach to the book.

Finally the outside covers of the signatures are glued to the base book.

I hope this all makes sense but I would recommend you watch the video when it will be absolutely 100% clear!

I see a lot more books on the horizon!! I am always taking notes for knitting, spinning, drama, craft work and gardening so I am sure these will be taken up and used very soon.

Again thank you for joining me and I hope this post and links to Jenny's fabulous tutorial and also Sea Lemon's book binding videos will inspire you to give it a go.

Jennie x