Geek Art Gallery: Tutorial: How to Craft a Book

Here’s a set of photographic instructions on how to make your own book. I came across while browsing Imgur. It's impressively simply, unlike other tutorials I've seen, which often call for specialized tools or supplies. I'm pretty sure that you could pick up the thread, linen, and paper needed for this project at just about any craft store in the country for under fifteen dollars. Attach a brass ornament to the cover and this would sell pretty well on Etsy.

The dimensions of the paper doesn't matter. Just make sure that the fibers of the paper are ALWAYS facing upwards just like a book standing in your bookcase. (In this case, the fibers are aligned along the short side of the paper)

Fold all pages once. (you can feel the fibers by the way the paper bends when you fold it. If it feels flexible then that is the way the fibers are aligned)

Put them in each other 4 by 4. Let's call this a "flap" for now

Stack all the flaps together and put in under pressure. Preferably for 24 hours.

Mark the flaps with a pencil, the lines should be queal apart in length. The space in between the two closest lines here is 1cm. The size may differ depending on the dimension of the books

Poke holes in the marks with a sewing needle. This is easier to do if you have a lamp in front of you. (This is why we made them 4 by 4. More papers will make it too thick and harder to pierce)

Take a thread the lenght of your total ammount of flaps (plus a little more for good measures) and drag the thread against wax. This will prevent the thread from breaking. I'm using a beewax candle

Enter the first hole of the flap, go through and exit the next hole and repeat.

It should look like this

Place a new flap on top of the old one and enter the hole directly above

Add bands or some sort and place them in the smallest "grids". We do this to add sturdiness to the back. I'm using the fibers of a coarse linen thread

Always tug the thread after finishing each flap

After the third flap you must make a small knot in the flap right below your newly finished one

Like so

Enter the next and make sure to always tie it at the ends

It should look something like this inside the pages

Stitch by stitch, stitching it together

Done. Finish it with a double knot

Put a thin layer of glue on the back. Remove the excess glue with your fingers and put the pages under pressure for another 24 hours.

Wet a thin piece of cloth (or special paper) with glue and attach to the back

Cut 2 pieces from hard cardboard to use as covers for the book. They should be just a few millimeters broader than the pages, we want a margin here. Again, it is extremely important that the fibers are facing upwards just like the pages. You can feel the fibers by bending the cardboard.

Cut out a small piece of thin carton paper. The size of it should be the exact dimensions as the backside of your book pages. Glue it against a piece of paper

Optional! Add fancy bands for decoration

Now glue the hard cardboard covers on the paper back, the thin carton paper piece should be face down. The margin between covers and carton back should be about half a centimeter, give or take.

Cut out a piece of cloth that you fancy for the covers. Make it larger than the covers by a few centimeters. (If the cloth is so thin that you can see through it in the light then you might want to take a thin piece of paper and glue it against the cloth for thickness)

Add glue to the cloth and cut away the edges around the cover in a 45 degree angle. Cut away some near the backside too. Place the cover on the cloth and fold all the edges over the cover to make it stick