Do-it-yourself book: how to make a book at home. 75 photos and videos of step-by-step instructions

Books used to be considered the best gift. But times are changing, and today more and more people are turning to the Internet to learn something new or just read something “light.” However, such information sources have not only advantages. They are deprived of the most important thing: soul. After all, only “living” books have their own unique smell and unique aura.

Do you want to give an original and sincere gift to a loved one? Create a book with your own hands from paper!

Stages of creating a book at home

Before you start creating your own book, you need to determine what to write in it. For example, this could be a collection of poems of your own composition. Or a story written by yourself. Or it could be any finished product downloaded from the Internet.

For information: decide in advance what format of the paper publication you will create at home. Don't know what to choose? Photos of homemade books will help you make your choice.

Secondly, the source text needs to be transferred to paper. To do this you will need a printer, clean sheets of paper and a little patience.

When printing, do not forget about the margins, otherwise the spine of the future book will simply “eat” all the letters located on the left side of the sheet.

Lastly, the sheets will need to be arranged in order. Carefully check their location so that you do not have to redo the finished book.

Book making methods

You need to choose the optimal and appropriate way to create a book. For example, if you have a lot of colored and white paper at home, try creating a book using the origami technique, which is popular in many countries.

For lovers of small decorative books, you can create a small book that will decorate your shelf and gradually create a large collection of such wonderful books with which you can surprise your friends.

A flip book is a nice, simple option for creating a book that won't take up much time. Before looking at each method in more detail, you need to prepare your tools.

Pre-assembly of the printed publication

So, the text is transferred to paper, the sheets are laid out in order. What's next?

• Prepare a thick brush and PVA glue.
• Fold the pieces of paper as evenly as possible (knock the stack on the table several times).
• Place the sheets on the edge of the table so that their left side protrudes beyond the furniture lid by 2-3 cm.
• Press down the stack of paper in several places with something heavy (dumbbells, vice, etc.).
• Soak a brush in glue and brush it over the edge of the paper sheets protruding from the table.
• Wait approximately 60 minutes for the glue to dry.

If the glue is liquid, or the paper does not want to dry out, then increase the exposure time on the sheets to 2-3 hours. Believe me, the future book will only benefit from this.

Materials and tools for work

To prepare for the process of creating a book, you need to know what will be useful. First of all, these are scissors, a ruler, colored or white paper, PVA glue, cardboard, fabric.

Paper is needed for origami, glue is useful for gluing the necessary parts, scissors for cutting and trimming, cardboard and fabric are useful for creating the binding of a future book. A ruler as an assistant tool, without which any creative work is indispensable.

How to make a bookmark for a book?

• Draw a small, funny figure or some kind of smiley face on a piece of cardboard.
• Cut the workpiece using scissors.
• Flip the image over and transfer it to the cardboard (this creates the reverse side of the design).
• Color both sides of the future bookmark.
• Take a paperclip, place it on the half of the figure or smiley coated with glue, and press the structure with the other half of the image.
• Keep everything pressed down and let the glue dry completely.
• That's it, the original author's bookmark is ready.

Creating a cover

So, enough time has passed, and the future book has finally dried up. All that remains to be done is to create an original cover for it. But before that:

• take two sheets of white cardboard and cut them to the size of the first and last sheet of the book;
• cut the threads sticking out from the spine, bringing the scissors as close to the fabric as possible;
• coat the top and bottom sheets of paper in a stack with glue at a distance of 2-3 cm from the spine, without touching the pasted material;
• glue the cardboard to the paper;
• wait about 1 hour.

Now proceed to the final stage. To do this, prepare PVA glue, a brush, cardboard, chintz or cotton material and self-adhesive film (you should discard it if the book will be hand-painted).

• Measure the length and width of the front of the book.
• Transfer these measurements onto the cardboard and add 0.5 cm to three sides (top, right and bottom).
• Cut out two blanks.
• Measure the length and width of the spine of the printed publication.
• Transfer the dimensions onto the cardboard and add 0.5 cm of space at the top and bottom. Cut out the blanks.
• Transfer the obtained spine dimensions to the material, add 6-7 cm to the existing width and 1 cm to the length. Cut off the excess fabric.
• Take a fabric blank and once again transfer its dimensions to the material, increasing the length of the product by 5-7 cm. Cut out the blank.
• Place two large rectangles of cardboard and a cardboard spine on the table the way you want them to look in the book (narrow rectangle in the center).

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For information: leave a small gap of about 0.5 cm wide between the sheets of cardboard.

• Coat them with glue.
• Soak a small piece of fabric in glue and glue it to the inside of the cover.
• Wait at least 1 hour.
• Turn the cover face up, and moisten the spine and adjacent edges of the cardboard with glue.
• Soak a long piece of fabric in glue and glue it to the cover, turning the long edges to the inside.
• Wait until the glue is completely dry before decorating the cover.

To do this, you can use either self-adhesive film or any type of paint that is used to paint on cardboard. If the cover is decorated with film, then its edges must be bent inward by 4-5 cm.

Thanks to this, the original “pasting” adheres firmly to the cardboard and does not wrap. And to hide its traces from the inside, the cover is glued to the first and last sheet of white cardboard.

So, in this way you can both create a children's book of fairy tales and make a book of wishes.

At the same time, there are no restrictions on the content, size or subject of the publication. After all, the most important thing is different: you just have to like the book.

The best gift is a book. Making a beautiful binding

The idea of ​​creating a book with my own hands has been in my head for quite some time. Having studied the practical side of the issue, I only became stronger in this desire, but my hands never even got around to choosing a book. And then some time ago fate decided for me. Due to force majeure circumstances, I had a desire to give a unique thing, and, as you know, there is no gift better than a book. The choice fell on the favorite work of the object of my uncontrolled interest, incredibly wise and capacious, with meaning, not words, the creation of Exupery - “The Little Prince”. The desire to create was also spurred by my personal love for this book. The decision was made, time was inexorably approaching the moment of delivery, and I got to work.

Where to start was the main question. Thanks to Google and Habr, I managed to find several fairly detailed instructions on book binding, promising, with a competent approach, a result that could satisfy the inner craving for beauty.

I will leave links to these articles at the end along with thanks to the authors. I'd like to think that I was able to take the best of their methods and bring something of my own.

To begin with, it was worth choosing a format. For me it was a6, because the book is small, and with a larger format it would have turned out to be unpresentably thin, and in this size, in my opinion, it looks much nicer. The first step, as expected, was layout. It took several versions to download before I managed to find a version with appropriate formatting (to edit less) and color pictures, which, however, were later replaced with higher quality ones. The layout itself took several hours; it was necessary to select a font suitable in size and style, replace and arrange the pictures less chaotically, and select suitable indents. When laying out a more capacious book, it will take much more time.

Next is printing. It’s worth saying right away that even at the preparation stage I decided for myself that I wanted to get the result as accurate as possible, and therefore throughout the entire production I did not hesitate to use automated equipment - printers, cutters and a laser engraver.

So, print. The order of pages was set using the wordpage program, because it turned out to be the simplest tool and, in general, satisfying me on all counts. The only thing it lacks is calculating numbering for duplex printing.

Everything is simple here, you need to set your parameters - the number of pages, the number of pages in the notebook, print the pages from the first row, turn the sheets over and print the pages from the second row. The main thing is not to confuse the orientation.

The sheets were trimmed to A5 size using a paper cutter designed specifically for this purpose, so everything was neat, quick and hassle-free. You can, of course, cut it with a stationery knife, but the result will be worse, and you will have to spend much more time on it. Along with cutting the sheets for the book, it is worth immediately cutting a couple of blank sheets of thicker paper for endpapers of a similar size.

Now we fold A5 in half and get the treasured A6, and with it the first idea of ​​what it will look like in the end. It is necessary to fold taking into account the page numbers. Since I decided to bind notebooks with 16 sheets each, I had 4 A5 sheets in my notebook. The inner ones should be bent with strong pressure (you can even hold your fingernail in the place of the bend), the outer ones, on the contrary, with weak pressure, this way you get neat notebooks, smooth and with identical edges (which, by the way, still need to be cut off later).

It was decided to sew the binding through. I really liked the way the colored threads looked on the spread of the notebook, and this option looked a little stronger. To pierce the holes, you need to take thicker paper (I used 240 g/m^2), cut it to the height of the sheets and mark it, taking into account the width of the lace around which you will sew the pages, as well as making a 10 mm indent from the edges (not necessary exactly that much, it just looked good in my case).

Next, we apply this template to each notebook in turn (for additional fixation, I pressed it with stationery clips) and with a sharp awl we make neat holes, exactly opposite the marking lines. This is a very important stage that requires maximum care and precision. The more careful we are here, the less we will have to edit later.

I sewed the binding using embroidery thread (floss), it looks good, it holds perfectly, what else do you need?! Since this is a gift, it was worth taking into account the preferences of the future owner, the favorite color is green, all that remains is to find threads of the desired shade. The binding is sewn starting from the first or last notebook, first we thread the thread from the outside into the book, along the edges where the thread passes from one notebook to another, we secure it with knots.

The resulting structure, aligning the notebooks relative to each other, is pressed into a press and carefully coated with glue. I used a special glue for cardboard and paper, UHU creative. It dries quickly, adheres well, is not water-based, so it does not soak the paper and remains somewhat elastic after gluing. Let it dry.

After our book has dried and stuck together, we can take it out and evaluate the result. Next, we take the sheets for the endpapers that we cut out first, fold them in half and, having coated the edge near the fold with glue (I applied 5mm), glue them on the outer sides.

We wait for it to dry, cut off the excess threads and lace from the binding, secure the edges of the lace and knots with glue, it is perfectly absorbed into the fabric and holds its volume. To strengthen the binding, we glue something “gauze-like” onto it. For me it was canvas (again from the field of embroidery). We are not attaching it to the endpaper for now so that the hardened glue does not interfere with us further.

Due to the fact that the sheets in the notebooks are folded around one another, the leading edge ends up being a little “toothy,” and no matter how hard we try, we still can’t sew the pages perfectly evenly.

Now is the time to do a clean cut. You need to be careful here. Due to the threads and the folding of the paper, the side with the binding turns out to be a little thicker, so you need to squeeze it carefully under the press so that the binding does not move, otherwise the cut will be uneven. The easiest way is to place a sheet of cardboard on top of the central part so that the book is pressed over the entire area.

So, the book is now smooth and looks very cool, but it will get better. It's time to hide the not-so-nice rear end. For this you need captals (captal tape, etc.). In general, you can buy this very tape. But it’s not so easy to find it in retail stores, and not so quickly via the Internet. Time was already running out, and besides, I wanted to make the captals the same color as the endpapers and binding thread. So the decision was made to make them myself. I simply took the ribbon I used for the binding and edged it on one side with the same green thread folded in half, then cut the ribbon into shapes.

This tape seems to be supposed to be sewn to the binding, through the notebooks (in the same holes). But, firstly, I already had them under a layer of glue, and secondly, it would have been ugly on the spread of the notebook, and so on top of that, I assumed that no one would throw the book, so the captals would hold up perfectly on the glue, so that I just glued them on. First, the main part, so that the glue did not protrude from under the thread, but at the same time kept the tape directly under it, and after drying, I shortened the side “sleeves” a little and glued them to the main part crosswise.

Well, the book itself is ready. Now it's up to the cover. The cover should be slightly taller than the book. Since the book is small, I made the cardboards 10 mm higher in height (5 mm on each side), and the same width as the book. The template was drawn in Corel and cut using a laser engraver. For the outer part, I took dark brown textured design paper, drew in Corel the location of the elements on it and the lines for cutting, so as not to measure anything, and printed it all on paper, on a regular A4 format laser printer. Then I cut along the lines with a utility knife. All elements fit on paper + 8.5 mm per folding part.

When marking this way, it is worth taking into account the thickness of the cardboard in order to leave an overlap for bending.

We apply a thin, even layer of glue to the cardboard, sufficient for it to adhere well to the paper, and, applying along the markings, carefully press down. The glue dries quickly, so there shouldn't be any mistakes here. One piece of cardboard shifted by half a millimeter when squeezed, and I couldn’t get it back into place. In this case, the paper was separated only with the top layer of cardboard. It’s good that I cut out 2 sets of cardboard at once, I had to redo everything. After drying, wrap the edges, coated with glue; then leave to dry.

A piece of glue on the inside will be hidden by the endpaper, so it’s not critical, here’s what we ended up with:

Let's try the book:

Everything turned out neat and beautiful, and it seemed like you could paste the book in and then put the image on the cover, but I decided that I could do it better! The cover was good, and would have been even better with an image, but it didn't look durable enough, or unfinished or something. And I decided that the cover should be leather. I had no skills in working with leather, the material is capricious, requiring experience and tools, which I also did not have, and therefore I turned to a person who does all kinds of leather work (next time I will do this myself). We discussed all the details, material, manufacturing, etc., I handed him a paper cover for pasting and stitching with leather cord. This is what happened.

I immediately liked everything on the outside, but there was a surprise waiting on the inside. The edges were horribly crooked. On the long side it was possible to trim them a little to make them even, which was done using a sharp utility knife and a metal ruler.

But there was nothing to trim on the short sides (bottom and top), so I had to play tricks. I smeared a little glue, applied a ruler to the edge, and pulled out the skin where it was missing, pressing it where it protruded. There was a large piece missing in the lower right corner of the cover; I had to cut it out, glue it and straighten it out of the pieces I had cut off. After drying it can still be seen, but it is not noticeable.

After all the above-described events, the cover took on a decent look, which satisfied me. We glue the book.

We coat the surface of the endpapers together with the outline with a thin, even layer and press down. We place a larger sheet of paper between the fold of the endpaper so that excess glue, which in any case will be there, albeit in a small amount, will not stick the pages together. Five minutes is enough, open it, remove excess glue, it is still not dry, and it comes off almost without a trace. Do the same on the other side, then lay it out to dry. Check carefully to make sure there is no glue on the pages.

It's time for decorative work. The image at the top of the post was chosen to be used on the cover.

To get a good result, you need to make a vector image from a raster image. The rough part of the work was done by the Vector magic utility, and a familiar designer helped bring the image to life. This is what happened.

The image is now ready for engraving. Fingers crossed, we place the book under the laser. One minute of worry - and you're done. Now all that remains is to remove traces of burnt skin, soot or something similar. It is well absorbed into the small pores of the skin, so it is not so easy to remove. I did it with an eraser, but not everything went as smoothly as I would like.

In general, I was satisfied with the result, but so far the skin was too dirty and not protected. To prevent oily fingerprints from leaving on the leather and to make it generally more protected, you need to apply a topcoat. It is absorbed into the top layer, gives a slight shine (the effect may vary, depending on the composition) and water-repellent properties. And then failure awaited me. In the process of erasing the engraving marks, I damaged the thin top layer of leather, which obviously had some kind of additional covering. After applying the “finish” the skin in this area darkened. And although everyone I asked told me that everything was fine, my frustration knew no bounds.

No matter what I tried to remove the darkening, nothing helped. The solution was found quite quickly.

This was the finishing touch. Now I was happy with everything. The final coating also secured the small elements of the design. Now the book looked and felt truly dignified and durable. Let's see what happened.

Finally, some tips. Consider the placement of page numbers on the spread; I only remembered this when the pages were printed and punched for binding. As you can see, on the left side the page numbers are in the wrong place. I didn’t redo it, I decided that it would only add individuality. Before the book itself, it is worth inserting a blank sheet, or a sheet with a cover, because the first page opens worse than the others, due to the 5 mm that the flyleaf is held on to. Do everything yourself as much as possible, “if you want to do it well, do it yourself.” In the next project (there will certainly be one), I will carry out the work with leather myself, so that I can do it carefully from the very beginning, even if it takes ten times longer. It is better to engrave the leather with the finishing coat already applied; then the soot can be wiped off with a simple cloth or cotton wool, without any difficulties or sacrifices.

Well, what would I like to say? I spent about 2 weeks on this project, an hour and a half a day. I put my own work and soul into this thing. I really like how it turned out. This is a unique thing, this is exactly what I wanted to do. I would never, ever be able to buy something so filled with emotion. This is by far the best gift I have ever given. I think it's clear that it was worth it.

I hope my experience will be useful to someone.

Used materials

www.strana-naoborot.com/5raznoe/book/pereplet.htm habrahabr.ru/post/96684

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