Merry Wanderer of the Night:
crafts

Boxes were the last assignment for my bookbinding class and in my opinion they were the most fun. In bookbinding boxes are typically used as enclosures for books, but mine are just fun little boxes for things around the house.

I am really glad bookbinding is over. Bookbinding is fun and rewarding, but it also takes a great deal of time and patience. Many weeks I spent ten hours or more on making books, which is pretty challenging as an undergraduate. I do like having things to show for taking a class though. In the future I would like to continue making books on my own since they are fun projects. It will also probably be less stressful when I know I won't be graded on them!

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I finally made some real books! These took many hours of blood, sweat, and tears. Totally worth it though. I have some nice hardcover books.

Look at the nice wide spines!

I was really pleased with the different cloths I picked.

The endsheets on the books.

These were by far the most challenging books I've made this semester but they were also the most rewarding in the end. I felt like there were several opportunities to check your work along the way.

I feel like I've spent more time making books than reading books as of late. I'm enjoying taking two art classes this semester but it is a lot of work. These four books probably took me about ten hours last week. The bottom two were my first tries which is why there is so much sewing. I didn't really think that through-- it took forever.

The bottom one is 60 pages, so 120 front and back.

Some of them have flaps which is nice. The one picture above probably turned out to be my favorite. I glued two sheets of paper together to strengthen the paper for sewing. Everything turned out nice and even. I'm looking forward to using this one as a journal once I finish the journal I'm currently using. I have so many books I've made I don't know what to do with them all! I'm making at least 11 more this semester and already have 18. Who knew I'd end up with so many journals?

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Last week I showed off my pamphlets, or the first books I've ever made. I've been hard at work on my hardcover pamphlets now and I'm about halfway done. Here are the two I have finished.

The two hardcover pamphlets.

End sheets on books. The yellow one doesn't have an end sheet.

Bindings on my books.

I'm happy with how these turned out. I really love this paper I got at the Paper Nest. It's super forgiving and beautiful. I especially like the blue grey paper with the white design. I'm almost out of it and I will be so sad when it's gone! But I'm looking forward to picking out more paper. The covers on the yellow pamphlet aren't lined up perfectly which really bothers me, but I have two more books to try and get it perfect before I turn these in.

When I first started bookbinding I was easily frustrated by all the things I had to think about, but I feel like I'm getting the hang of it.

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I'm currently taking a bookbinding class, which means I've spent the last two weeks learning the basics of bookmaking. This means pamphlets. I made six pamphlets, two each of three different kinds. Here are the fruits of my labor:

All of my books in a row.

French folds, or folding the cover over the book so the stitching does not show.

Double pamphlet (two groups of pages) with a wrapper cover (cover wraps around end sheets).

Fore-edge turn ins, two different end sheets with a cover wrapping around the first end sheet.

Chain stitches on the fore-edge turn ins.
I'm pretty pleased with the way all of these turned out. The bigger books were my first go around and they didn't turn out as well as the smaller books my second time. If I were going to do things over I would make smaller books for my first try and use more supplies on my second tries. Live and learn.

Have you ever made a book? Would you like to?

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Over winter break I posted some pictures of a book wreath I made. Even though I got some cringes I'm still going to post the pictures of a book flower I recently made. I'm actually going to make two of these for a floor vase I'll use in the townhouse I'm moving into (in five weeks!).

Some people are against crafting with books, and I get that. In my case this was a romance novel I had already read and the options I had for getting rid of it were taking it to a used bookstore that might by it and getting a quarter or turning it into something beautiful I could enjoy. I chose the latter.

This Monday I was a very busy crafter. Because of that I didn't get quite as much reading done as I normally would, but I was doing something bookish all the same. I got this idea from Living With Lindsay so if you would like to do this craft you should go over to her blog to find out how. Basically it is a foam wreath covered in pages ripped from a book. This took me about three and a half hours. On her blog it says her materials cost $2. Mine were a little more than that. I actually had to buy a glue gun and glue because I didn't have any, that cost me $5. I don't have a Dollar Tree around here so I had to go to Michael's to find the wreath (it was a last resort though, believe me). My foam wreath cost about $5. I already had a book I purchased at a used book store several years ago about the Rothschilds. I never read it and I probably never would have so I didn't feel too bad about ripping it up. So overall the actual wreath cost me $5.

This was really easy to make! Anyone can do it, but watch out for glue gun burns!