Saturday, October 14, 2006

Homemade books









A friend lent me a book by Shereen LaPlantz about making books. I already had one by Alisa Golden but hadn't understood the instructions so had done very little with it. The LaPlantz book made all clear and since then I've been trying out different types of construction using both books! I do quite a bit of colouring of paper by printing (stamping) and painting so some of these bits have been just right for covering board for covers. I've also found backing paper with iron-on vilene makes it easier to stitch over.
This, and different ways of treating the spine, with stitches, weaving and beads, needs developing a lot more, it's early stages yet.

I've used PVA glue to make cover boards with paper, but tried fusible web (e.g.bondaweb) for an embroidered fabric one, which seems to have worked. I've got the hang of stitching signatures (the groups of pages folded together) now, both for enclosed and open spines. so now I need to let the imagination loose a bit more.

3 comments:

Linda B. said...

These look gorgeous - and just beg to be stroked!

Mandy said...

These books look wonderful. Well done.
They should be great fun to use as well as to make.

Beate Knappe said...

I love your books