DIY: Simple Book-Making

The book Random, Absurd Poetry is an externally bound book. You can see excerpts from this book on this website.

We’re getting into the crunch-time for gifts, be they DIY?áor store-bought. We all love DIY gifts… but who wants to shop for supplies right now? It’s mayhem out there! One thing you can make out of simple materials that you might have on hand, is a book.

A book’s construction?áhas three basic elements: the covers, the pages inside, and some sort of binding-method. I won’t go into the intricacies of book-binding here, but I will suggest?ásome simple ideas for book-making.

A long strip of paper glued together, and a couple of covers form a simple book.

When I took a book-making course back in college, the very first book we made was a zig-zag accordion?áformat book. Basically, we took pieces of paper and?áglued them together to form a long strip, then folded that strip into a zig-zag. We then cut some hard board?áto a little larger than the folded pages, and glued the accordion of paper inside the two covers. Simple.

You could leave the book blank, or fill it with art, poetry, a story… etc.

Another idea for simple book-making is to just staple. Make your cover, make some pages for inside, and add a couple of staples to “bind” them all together. A lot of poets and underground zine publishers use this method to make their books.

A little more fancy idea, but very beautiful, is to create?áan external binding. I have three examples of this: in one, my friend used an elastic and a stick to bind his book. In the two others I used materials to “sew” the covers and pages together.

This poetry Chapbook is small, just a few pages held together with two staples.

Now, as for the covers, I do recommend a board that is not soft and mushy like corrugated cardboard. However, if that’s all you have, then perhaps gluing a couple of pieces together would be sturdy enough to use. You can cover the covers of your book with decorative paper or fabric, just wrap it like a present. On the insides of the covers glue another piece of paper on top to cover the ugly-bits nicely. Really take a good look at some of your older, bound books. You’ll see a real artistry to it. One of these days, maybe in February, I’ll go over some more intricate book-binding options.

My friend's book on the left, my book on the right. Just punch holes through the covers and insides of the book, and you can bind.

The insides of the book? That’s up to you! You could?áshare a favorite family story, a children’s story, draw a cartoon, paste some photographs… share some?áfavorite poems, or leave it blank. Everyone needs notebooks!

Natasha Henderson, Montreal


Comments

6 responses to “DIY: Simple Book-Making”

  1. I love this idea! Beautiful books and a reason to stay away from the malls!

    1. natashahenderson Avatar
      natashahenderson

      Yes, they can be really beautiful indeed! I’ll probably make a few as gifts myself, this year.

  2. This is a great idea!

    1. natashahenderson Avatar
      natashahenderson

      🙂 Thanks! I like the simple ones, myself.

  3. […] could use some of the simple book-binding skills we covered the other day,?áas I did in the example below. Simple-simple! I just cut may paper to […]

  4. […] I mentioned once before, I managed to take a?ábook-making course during my final year of art-school. We learned various […]

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