How to make a hardcover book
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.
Francis Bacon
Materials
- Two pieces of stiff cardboard or picture frame matting - 13 inches by nine and one-half inches - to make the covers hard
- One piece of cloth 20 inches by 31 inches, - for the book cover
- Two pieces of colored paper 12 inches by 18 inches - back and front inside cover
- Ten pieces of white paper 12 inches by 18 inches - pages of the book
- Large needle, heavy thread, white paste or glue, ruler, pencil, and a bunch of heavy books.
Directions:
Suggestion: Read all the directions so you understand how the book is made and can anticipate what to do.
- Put the two pieces of colored paper on the bottom of the 10 pieces of white paper.
- Fold each piece separately so that the folded piece is nine inches by 12 inches.
- Unfold each piece keeping them in a pile with the white on top and colored on the bottom.
- Measure one-half inch from the top down on the fold and put a small light dot (you will want to erase these later). Continue making dots one inch apart all the way down the center of the paper on the fold (total of 11 dots).
- Use the needle to punch holes on the dots in all of the papers.
- Use the holes that you punched and start and stop on the side with colored paper (so the knots will not be in the middle of the book, but hidden by the cover) use the thread and needle to sew the twelve pieces of paper together with the two colored
- sheets on the bottom).
- Fold the pages along the dotted and sewed line so that the colored pages are now on the outside front and back of the book.
- Use these pages as a guide and center them from top to bottom and left to right on the material.
- Mark the top, bottom, and two sides.
- Position the cardboard onto the material so that each piece of cardboard is centered from top to bottom and adjacent to the left and right of the marked center position positions.
- The marked position should be open so the pages can be inserted later.
- Glue the cardboard onto the cloth and smooth out all wrinkles. If the fabric is thick the edges at the corner may be clipped to make them smoother.
- Place the book with the colored pages down onto the fabric covered cardboard book cover and position them where you like.
- Lightly mark the position so you will know where to place the pages after putting on the glue.
- Put the paste or glue on the outside of the colored sheet and glue it to the cardboard using the marks as a guide.
- Place it on a flat surface and stack several books on top and let it dry overnight.
Congratulations!!!
You now have your own book.