Handmade Books: A Step-by-Step Guide to Crafting Your Own Books [Hardcover]

Kathy Blake (Author), Ted Morrison (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 1997

From fabric-covered albums of vacation photographs to bound collections of children's drawings, handmade books are one-of-a-kind keepsakes -- and one of the fastest-growing crafts today. Now, with this comprehensive and lavishly illustrated guide, anyone can master the fine art of bookmaking. Starting with the easiest types of books to make -- scrolls and bound single sheets -- Handmade Books presents fifteen step-by-step projects, culminating with instructions for beautiful multisignature hardcovers. Here are message scrolls and diaries, albums and address books, scrapbooks and chapbooks -- a treasury of unique craft projects for anyone who loves books.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Books with creative formats and artistic bindings have always been a specialty of small presses, but now the computer printer enables anyone to make distinctive-looking books. These three volumes are full of ideas and techniques for compiling and binding handmade books in many formats, including "memory books" and personalized scrapbooks. Blake (Making and Decorating Your Own Paper, Sterling, 1995) deals mainly with the mechanics of making covers and bindings. Graphic designer Kropper goes beyond this into hand-decorated pages, unusual formats, and traditional methods such as fore-edge painting. The Vanessa-Ann book is for makers of memory books and includes projects combining photographs and keepsakes with cutout mountings and simple bindings. All three books are good additions to public library collections, complementing one another rather than overlapping.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Bulfinch; 1st edition (October 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821222201
• ISBN-13: 978-0821222201
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #652,897 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A THOROUGH GUIDE - NOW I KNOW I CAN DO IT!, October 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Handmade Books: A Step-by-Step Guide to Crafting Your Own Books (Hardcover)

Everything is included in this book so when you pick out a project, you really know how to do it from the very clear step by step pictures and it lists what you'll need. I took an art class and at the end of the semester, I made an accordion book as a presentation folder for my work. (Everyone else bought blank books) The teacher thought I was a genius, but I got the idea from this book!

The color pictures are really beautiful, too and inspired me with a lot of creative ideas for gifts. My family really appreciates the books, photo albums and cards I've made for them - all because I've used this book so much for ideas!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read it, Make it, January 31, 2001

By 

Teri "photogeek" (Ramona, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Handmade Books: A Step-by-Step Guide to Crafting Your Own Books (Hardcover)

This book is great! There are so many great ideas of how to make the handmade books. I'm sure many have been thought of before, but this book makes sure to run you through each step in an organized fashion to ensure and strong stable book. This book would have come in handy when I was trying to figure out how to make an accordian book for my photography final. The only disappointment is that there are not more color photos. There are color photos of the DONE books, but no color photos of books in the process. I just think it would help me a little bit more. All in all, this is a great book with good ideas. I'm feeling inspired to make a new book now.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not a good start for this beginner., January 5, 2001

By 

Honey Clark "book frog" (Collegeville, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Handmade Books: A Step-by-Step Guide to Crafting Your Own Books (Hardcover)

I wanted to start making my own books, so I bought this one to help me. I had a few problems. Some of the steps in the starch paste recipe are unclear, so the first time I tried I got starch soup instead. And in the hard cover multi-signature instructions, the steps get very contradictory. They tell you to past the hinge onto the spine directly, then later you're told to paste down the sewing tape BEFORE the hinge.. which would be impossible if you had followed instructions up to that point, because the tape is sewn into the signatures right at the spine.

I've managed to muddle through, but I still would not recommend this book to people just starting out in bookbinding.