Creating a Handmade Art Book

Today, I’m bringing another book that I made. This time it is “Rhymes”, a book about legendary small tales that go from generation to generation.

I’ll explain the process that I used to put it together. You can use the same approach to make your own handmade book, customizing it to fit whatever you want to express.

1. The first thing that I look for is a good base, in this case meaning beautiful background papers that inspire me to create.
2. Now, I decide the title and the content. After that, I decide on the size of the book. I also think about some materials that I’m going to use, but I leave ample space for future creativity.
3. I gather my basic materials: chipboard and papers, and then I cut them to the appropiate size.



4. Next, I prepare the covers. In this case, I decided to paint the back cover using acrylics and I used paper for the front cover. The painting on the back cover had to reflect the fantasy mood and colors from the beautiful papers that I used for the front. I painted the edges with gold paint.



5. For the individual pages, I first glued the chipboards to the designers’ paper. Once dried, I used the sewing machine to stich the chipboard and designer paper together.  This makes the pages sturdier and gives them more of a finished look.
6. The pages were then treated with gold paint at the edges and other paint on the papers.
7. I proceeded to print the quotes on vellum and the vintage images on tissue paper. To print on tissue, I backed the tissue with normal copy paper and masking tape, and then I ran it through the printer.  The image below displays two vintage images printed on tissue paper, which provides a unique and delicate touch.



8. Then, I designed and cut the photo corners, also doing the same for all the diecuts for the pages.
9. I organized all the pieces on each page and then attached them using different kinds of glue, depending on the object. Many or most of the pieces had glaze, glitter and/or paint applied to them. The image below shows a finished page, with the vellum quote, photo corners, printed tissue paper and button embellishments all glued onto a sewn page.



10. When everything was dried, I put all the pages together and measured the thickness in order to know the measurement of the spine of the book.
11. I cut the spine using some faux leather and glued it to the front and back cover.



12. I then glued gold tissue paper onto the inside of the covers.
13. I made an accordion fold piece with cardstock and glued the pages inside each fold.
14. I attached the front piece of the accordion to the front cover and the back piece to the back cover.
15. I created more details for the book, like a small pillow for the front cover, and applied glitter to the title.

This book is a labor of love; lots of materials and thinking were into its production. If you want to see more pictures and information about my “Rhymes” book, you can click here.

Tags: book making, how to make a book, mini book