Bookbinding Beginners Class: Binding a Portfolio

1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to my studio. In this course, we're going to learn how to make a handmade portfolio. If you are an Artist, Illustrator, Printmaker, Photographer, Calligrapher with you purely love Bookbinding and Box Making. This course is for you. My name is ido Agassi and I'm a Book Artist. I combine the Crafts of flips, press printing, Bookbinding, and Box Making to create my Art in the form of a book. I have been making books and boxes for 30 years and I would love to share my knowledge with you. I want to teach you how to make a Portfolio special and unique. Your outward will stand out. There are many types of portfolios in different shapes and styles. We're going to make one with the cloth spine. Three flaps. Can we are going to close it with an elastic band? We will start with the tools and Materials we would need and how to cut them into size. From there, we will cover the Portfolio starting with the cloth spine, then with paper. I will also teach you how to make beautiful corners, how to make flaps and connect them to your Portfolio. This class will take you step by step with clear explanations and detailed shots to give you a better view on the binding process and help you create your own special portfolio. Through the years, I made many portfolio for artists, exhibitions, our school submissions. You can make it as a gift or an elegant way to store your Art. Actually, I'm not sure you need a reason to make one just for the joy of making. I'm sure you will find what to put inside. So are you ready? Let's start working. 2. Tools and Materials: Hello, and thank you for joining this course. I'm really excited to start teaching you. I want us to start going through the tools and materials that we would need for the lessons. I'll put a great board on the table that would be a nice background. And we will start with the long ruler. Imagine size ruler and a small ruler. You can manage with one. But these are, the rulers are using this course, a triangular ruler for making The Corners, a cutting mat. I really recommend that thread scissors or regular scissors. A small craft knife, a 30 degree blade. A big craft knife for cutting the boards, a bone folder, a needle. I use it for marking. Two pins. A chisel around 1 cm wide. If you're having trouble finding one. I will also show you how to improvise with the flat headed screwdriver at pencil, PVA or white glue, whatever works for you. Stopper. It could be brass weights, marble, a piece of woodblock. The important thing is for it to be heavy enough, sits flat on the table and have a 90-degree angle. A spacer constructed from two Bookbinding board. So it would be around half a centimeter. A small glue brush number 12, which is two centimeter wide or three-quarters of an inch. A big blue brush number 18, which is around 38 mm or one and a quarter inch in diameter. Moving on to the materials, a piece of Bookbinding cloth, 70 on 35 cm, a sheet of paper for covering the board, 35 on 40 cm. Strips of wastepaper for Gluing, Bookbinding Boards, 52.40 cm, three sheets of A4 paper for lining the inside. Thin double-sided tape, just a small piece and the 1 cm wide elastic band. So these are all the tools and materials that you would need for this course. I also added a file in the Class Resources. So go ahead and check there. There's a list of all the tools, materials, everything converted into inches, Templates, Layouts. So go ahead and check there. And that's it for this lesson. And I'll see you in the next one. 3. Portfolio - Parts and Measurements: Welcome back. There are many ways to make a Portfolio. I want to teach you one that holds A4 paper. Widely used Measurements, I'm sure you and your home printer are familiar with. Let's go briefly through the parts of the portfolio before we start cutting on material. The portfolio is constructed from Bookbinding board with paper and cloth. We have the front Back Cover. We have a strip of cloth that connects them together with the spine. And we have three flaps, one for top and bottom, and one for the fourier edge that helps secure your work inside. Also, in this portfolio, I designed an elastic band to hold it close because I find it much easier to use. As an overall rule, the desired Measurements are the size of your work plus 4 mm on three sides. So if we are working with A4 paper and adding 4 mm on three sides, we get to the number of 30.5 cm on 21 point for about the thickness of the portfolio. That depends what you're going to put inside. But the rule is the thickness of your work. The two inner flaps are going to be the thickness of your work plus one board thickness. The forage side would be the thickness of your work plus two boards thickness. And the spine of the entire portfolio is going to be the thickness of your work plus three thicknesses. By the way, if you prefer to work in inches, you can work with a letter size paper. And now we'll add a PDF file with all the measurements converted into inches in our Class Resources. So that's it for this lesson. In the next one, we're going to start cutting home. See you there? 4. Cutting Materials Into Size: Welcome back. Let's start cutting Materials Into Size. Who will start with the Bookbinding board? First of all, we want to make sure that the Bookbinding board is in the right drain direction parallel to the spine. What's the grain direction? Every material, if it's Bookbinding board or paper, cloth, has a grain direction and we need it parallel to the spine. So if I will take this Bookbinding board and try to fold it, this side would be much easier to fall. Then this one, we can clearly see, this is our grain direction and we need it parallel to the spine. I really recommend you to go and see my bookbinding Beginners Class. In lesson number three, I given elaborate explanation about paper grain direction. And it's very important for you to understand before we start working. Let me take a pencil and mark the grain direction. So after we cut the material into small pieces, we will still remember what's the grain direction because when it's smaller, it's much more difficult to understand. Let me take a stopper, a ruler, and a needle, and we will start by measuring 21.4. Let me mark one mark. And second mark. Put the ruler between these two dots. I'll take my craft knife, hold the ruler firmly and cut. Now, when you cut board, don't try and push the knife strongly and cut because it usually takes four to five times to cut the Bookbinding board. And if you press very firmly, sometimes the ruler can move and you'll have a line that is not straight. So what I recommend you to do is do one light cut, a path for the other cuts to come. A pioneer. So you do a light cut and then you go deeper. 1234. And the board is cut. Let me measure the length. Soil mark, 30.51 mark. And the second mark. If you're wondering what I'm holding in my hand. This is a needle just connected to something that could help me hold it. I'll take my ruler, hold it firmly between the two dots I just made. Take my knife. And again, first light cut and then go deeper. 1234. We have the first board. Let's take the second one and Measure 21.4. 21.4. Ruler between the dots. First light cut and then go deeper. And the short side, 30.5. 30.5, I want to show you can also mark with a pencil. Why do I mark with a needle? Because sometimes the pencil is not sharp and the dot can move half a millimeter or a millimeter. When you use a needle, it would be always the same thickness and you have the point exactly in its place. After you've finished. Let's make sure both boards are the same length. It looks great. Moving on to The Spine. Spine, supposed to be one-and-a-half centimeter. So my point I have here And here, don't try to cut like this because your ruler can slip. I'll flip it over. Put the ruler on the bigger board so it won't move between the dots. And cut one. And then go deeper. Make sure you hold the ruler firmly. All we have to do now is cut the spine, the length of the board. You can measure it with two points, but I'll show you a trick. Can take the board. Put a stopper, put one here. Take your ruler. Cut. So we have the front and back cover with the right green direction and the spine. Let's move on to cutting the cloth. For making the portfolio, we would need two strips of cloth, one for the Outside, one for the inside. The length of the cloth is going to be 34.5, which is the length of the Bookbinding board with 2 cm on top and bottom, about the width, it's going to be 11 cm. And I want to show you how I got to 11 cm. I'll take the Bookbinding board and I'll put it here for you to understand. You have 4 cm on the first board, then we have a gap of half a centimeter. The spine, which is one-and-a-half centimeters, another gap. And then we have the second board with a 4 cm overlap. It all adds up to 11 cm in. Why am I telling you this and not just saying cut 11 cm with that is because I want you to understand the method behind calculating so you can apply to different formats. I'll take my long ruler and a pencil mark, 11 cm. Cut. The length is going to be 34.5. Mark it here. Hold a ruler and cut. The industry is going to be 7 cm wide. That would help cover inner spine and go over the boards. I'll hold the ruler between the marks and cut. The length of the inner strip is going to be 29.5, holding a ruler and cut. So we have all the parts for our portfolio. We have to Boards, spine and outer strip and in a strip about the Flaps. Who will do that in a different lesson. So that's it for this lesson. And I will see you in the next one. 5. Gluing The Spine: Welcome back. A couple of words about Gluing before we begin. When gluing or pasting to a surface, always aim to glue the thicker material first. Why is that? You remember we talked about grain direction. When the material is damp, it moves, it expands, and the thinner the material, the bigger it will expand. So for your easy work, always aim to glue the thicker material first, and we will do that in our lessons. So let's start Binding our portfolio. Let's start by taking the Bookbinding board, a ruler on a pencil. Mark, four centimeter from the edge of the board. Let's mark a straight line between those dots. Great. Now let's take our cloth. The outer side, which is the bigger side. And I will mark 2 cm from the edge. I'll take my bone folder, n-fold until the pencil mark. This fold will help us later locate the cloth exactly into place. This aside. Now what I'm going to do is take a piece of paper, put one underneath the board, and one on top of the board, exactly. Until the pencil line. I'll bring my glue brush and put the glue from the paper to the board and not the other way. So no glue will go underneath the line. Take the wastepaper out, put it aside, Make sure not to use it again. Now, let's take the piece of cloth, bring it to the fold and to the pencil mark. First with your hand, then with bone folder. Now, let's flip this over. Take your pencil and mark half a centimeter here. Half a centimeter here. Take the ruler, Make a line. Can other option. He's to glue two pieces of Bookbinding board together. And that would give you two, both thicknesses, which is supposed to be half a centimeter. So I'll use this. This is much more easy for me to work with. Let's glue the spine. I'm doing it from the middle towards Outside. Around half of it. Flip it over the other side. Now I'm Making sure the spine goes towards the spacer and to the line of the pencil off the weight. Take it outside, Making sure it doesn't move. Flip it over. Let's mark the second board. 4 cm. Now what I'm going to do is put the weight here for my straight line. Put the gap here, measuring until the mark. And then I will cut it into size. Will take another piece of wastepaper and put underneath. And one exactly on the line and glue the board. Remember from the paper towards the board. So no glue will go underneath your paper. Take the waste paper out. And also this one. Now we're going to take my board, bring it to the straight line on the upper side and to the gap. Take it outside Flip it over. Now, what we have left to do is connect the turbulence will take another piece of wastepaper put underneath in blue. Axis of cloth, points out of the Bookbinding board. Take the waste paper out. Grant edge with a bone folder, grid completely, then go inside the gaps. Ship it over. Take another piece of wastepaper, put underneath. This side. Also. Wastepaper out. Lift it and work with the bone folder. Go inside the gaps. You can let the binding move a bit. Moving on to the inside of the spine. We have the smaller, the inner peace. What I want you to do is look on the upper side and the lower side and located evenly. And I wanted to show you a nice trick. Take two needles. And mark. After you see everything is Parallel up and down, right and left. And put one needle here. And one needle here. The needle is mocking, not Connecting this piece. What we're going to do is glue the spine and glue this and then bring it to these two marks. But before we do that, let me mark 2 cm with a pencil. So I'll know more or less where I want to glue to reach two sides. Great. So and take the brush and work with the thicker material. First. Try do it until the line, but no worries. If you go a bit over it. Everything would be concealed afterwards. I'm going inside the gaps also. Second side. And make sure you work Just until the Cloth, not on the cloth. Okay. Now I'll take a piece of wastepaper and I'm going to glue only the edge of the cloth over here and edge here. Now look how easy it is to bring with cloth until these two needles. I'm going to glue the center, the spine first, and then go inside the gap in one side. And go inside the gap the other side also. After that will coincide. And the second thank you guys. Work with a bone folder between the gaps. See everything is glued. That's it for this lesson. We have The Spine ready, the Outside and the inside. Let me clear out here and prepare for our next lesson. We're going to learn how to cover the rest of the board. Who paper. I'll see you there 6. Covering The Boards: Welcome back. So we've finished making the spine of the portfolio, and now it's time to cover with paper. You can use decorative paper, marbled paper, pace paper, whatever you want. Just make sure that the grain direction is parallel to the spine. What we're going to do is cover one side with paper. The other side we're going to Make cloth corners and then Cover with paper. And we'll do that in the next lesson. The reason I'm teaching you both methods is because I want you to decide whatever you want. You can do it. Paper corners or cloth corners. So let's start by taking paper. This is the right side, this black. But I really loved this. Matt Gray and I'm going to actually work on the other side of the paper. Let's start by measuring 34 and-a-half centimeters. One mark. Marks cut. And we want 20 cm here. And here. Take my knife and cut. Last thing I want to do here is Mark two lines of 2 cm from the edge, the top side, and on the other side. Let me put this aside and let's take our portfolio. Mark with a needle 18th centimeters from the edge. Supposed to be around half a centimeter overlap. Now I want to show you a trick. I'll put this here. Can take my ruler and put it until the two marks and let the ruler stick out to centimeters. Let's put a piece of weight on it and move it aside a bit. And let's make some preparations before we start gluing. I'll take the paper and put for wastepaper underneath this with paper to put underneath the Bookbinding boards. Just up until the cloth. Okay, let me put a piece of weight on this one. Great. Now let's take the brush. My 20-year-old brush. Remember we talked about, first of all, gluing the thicker surface. So that's what we're going to do. I'm going to put glue on the board just until the cloth line. Not on the cloth. Okay. And when I'm gluing, I'm blowing from the inside out to the wastepaper. Even mount. If you have something on it, you can clean it. Now. I'll take the wastepaper out. And now let me take the small brush. I'm going to glue only a thin line until the pencil mark we did earlier. Just the edge. It's nice to hear the birds wastepaper out. Now we're going to take the paper, bring it to the edge, the two centimeter edge we made earlier and until the ruler line. So you have a straight line here. And this, this is going to be parallel. Let's move the ruler. Take our bone folder. Make sure everything is connected. This aside. Let's flip the Cover over. And now we are working The Corners. I'll take my small ruler and a pencil and put the ruler between the corner of the Bookbinding board and the corner of the paper. And mark half a centimeter. Then I'll take my triangular ruler, hold it when the inner triangle is straight with the Bookbinding board and bring it toward my mark and mark a 45-degree angle with the pencil Let's do it here also. Corner to corner, half a centimeter. Take my triangular ruler. Made sure the inner base is straight. With the Bookbinding board. Move it toward my mark and mark 45 degrees. Now I'll take the ruler and a knife on cut 1.2. Let's make the turn ins. I'm going to turn this one in the lower side, upper side. And then the forage will take wastepaper and put underneath, glue the edge of the paper from the inside out. Take the wastepaper out, take my bone folder, and slowly work my way inside the cover. Now I'll make the corner, I'll take it. I'll take my bone folder and take the axis material inside the corner like this. Let's flip it over. Takeaways paper underneath. From the inside out. Make sure not to stain the cloth until the corner here. Not a lot of glue. Just an even amount. Take the wastepaper out with the thumb. Moving towards inside. Make sure it's connected to the edge of the board. And then work the corner with bone folder folder and move it towards the fore edge. Let's do four size wastepaper. Some glue until the corner. The next corner. Wastepaper out. Don't forget. Make sure there's no air between the boards and the paper. Make sure you have nice connected corners. And that's it for this lesson. One side is covered. In the next lesson, we are going to Make cloth corners and then cover them. See you there? 7. Adding Cloth Corners: Welcome back. In this lesson, I want to teach you how to make cloth corners. Cloth corners are aesthetic but also practical. They are much more durable than paper and protects the corners of our portfolio for our book. In other cases, the overall rule, this is to make the size of your Corners equal to the size of your strip of cloth that comes to The Spine. But in our case, I want to make it a little bit smaller because I wanted to close with an elastic band. I will make it a little bit smaller and the strip of band will make it more pleasing to the eye. And proportional. How do we start? Will take a pencil and ruler and mark 4 cm from the corner towards for edge and one from the corner to the top side. Now, between these two marks, I'll make a straight line. This is one side. Let's do it to the other side. 4 cm, 4 cm. And make the line between these two marks. Okay, let's put this aside and bring a piece of cloth. We want to cut eight centimeter square. So let me Measure H centimeters. Measure here also 8 cm. And cut. And I'm going to take corner to corner, make two triangles. Now. Take my ruler and the small ruler and mark line into 2 cm and make a fold with a bone folder. Let's do one. 2 cm mark with pencil and folds with manslaughter. This false will help us afterwards, connected to the corner. And let's take our portfolio. Will take the wastepaper and put underneath one on top. Thank you. Cool brush. Include the corner. Takeaways, pick it out. Bring the triangle to the line of the Bookbinding board and the pencil line. And work with a bone folder. Let's do the other side. Stick another piece of wastepaper. One of the leaf on top. Glue that edge until the line. Take the wastepaper out. Take your corner, bring it to the line of the pencil and the line of the Bookbinding board. If you are off by a bit, don't worry, we are going to cover it afterwards with paper. But we are aiming for a nice straight corner. We're always aiming for the best, right? That's it. I'm flipping it over. Now it's time to make the cut. The 45 degrees. I'll take my pencil and the small ruler and put corner to corner and Mark half a centimeter. Now, I'll take My triangle ruler, see, the inner triangle base is trade and move it toward my mark. And mark with the pencil. Let's do it here also. Corner to corner. Mark, half centimeter. Take my triangle ruler and bring it towards the mark, mark with the pencil. Now I'll take my small ruler and a knife and cut one. And to bring another piece of wastepaper. Want to glue first the short side and then the long side. So I'll take my glue brush and glue the short side. Take the wastepaper out, take my bone folder and Connect. Work the corner. It's actually like we did in the previous class. Around wastepaper underneath. Put some glue on the short side. Paper out. Bring it with bone folder inside the Cuban folder and work the corner. Now we have left to do the forage side. I'll glue them both the same time. 1.2. Take the wastepaper out. Take your bone folder. Since slowly drifted and Connect. I love making corners. Look. We have to Corners ready? That's it for this lesson. In the next lesson we'll learn how to cover them with paper and cut in an angle so the corners would be revealed. I'll see you there. 8. Covering The Corners: Welcome back. After finishing our beautiful corners, it's time to cover the Outside with paper. Let me take a piece of paper. I cut it to the size of 34.5 on 20 cm, like we did on the first side of the portfolio. So what we are going to do is mark 2 cm on three edges. So this is one side, 2 cm over here to centimeters on the forage. Great. Now let's put the portfolio with the Outside up and take the backside of the paper. This is the side that we're going to see the backside of the paper and put it underneath. I want you to put it between the pencil mark we just made. Put weight on it. Make sure that if you measure the paper, you get to 18 cm. That's correct here. That's correct here. Great. Now, let's take our triangular ruler and a small ruler. And I want you to measure from the edge three-and-a-half centimeters. Take your pencil and mark a line. Let's do it. On the left side also. Bring your ruler to the small ruler. And when they touch on the corner, three-and-a-half centimeters, you make a mark. Let's do it on this side also. Pretty good seats, three-and-a-half, exactly. Three-and-a-half. And Mark and let's do it here. So bring it three-and-a-half centimeters. That's about right. And mark lines. Okay. Let's take the weight out. Move the portfolio out of the picture. And I'll take the small ruler, hold it between the 45-degree marks and cut 1.2. Let's take our Portfolio. A stopper, ruler and the needle. And we will mark 18 cm. Again here. 18 cm. Smoother to do it like this. Now, I'm going to take my long ruler, put between these two marks. And as I showed you, Let's bring it out 2 cm. I'll take a piece of wastepaper and put underneath the portfolio. Now, what we're going to do is take the paper, paste The Corners. And this line that goes with the spine. And the rest of the glue is going to be on the surface of the portfolio, will bring it to the line of the ruler and see it goes exactly 2 cm. And then the two corners would be parallel. I think this is the most important part in this course that you need to be exact, because if you go half a centimeter left or right, The Corners with actually won't be the same size. That is why we marked the 2 cm, and that is why this ruler is pointing to centimeter Outside. So when you bring it exactly into place, you will have equal Corners. Okay, so let's put the paper here. I'll bring my brush, my 20-year-old glue brush. And I'll start by gluing The thicker material first. When Gluing, bring it just until The cloth and not on it. Let's do around the corners. Not touching the corners. Because you're gluing the board, you have time now. If you see piece of dirt on it, you can take it out. Cps here. Take it out. I'll take my small brush. Can glue between pencil mark two, pencil mark. Forage. I'll take the wastepaper out. Now. Only glue The Corners between pencil mark, pencil mark, right about here. And this corner. Wastepaper up here and out of here. Now, this is a time to be precise. I'm taking the paper, bringing it to the ruler, pointing to centimeters and touching the straight line here. Let's move the ruler and work with a bone folder. If you have a problem and you have some air bubbles here from the paper, you can actually take a hairdryer and work with it. It works wonders really. Okay. Now let's take a piece of waste paper and glue. Short side. Be careful not to stay in the cloth. Take the wastepaper out, and with the bone folder. With your hands. You can cover. Decide. Flipping over. Paper. Brush. Hold it. Put the glue until Edge. Be careful not to stay in the cloth. Take the waste paper out, and work with a bone folder. And we have the forage. Next. Please paper, slowly lifted. Make sure everything is covered nicely. And behold, the Outside of the portfolio is ready. I think this is a great place to stop and have a coffee Break. I want to share with you some tips and thoughts from my experience designing portfolios for many years for Artist and different purposes. So go ahead and make yourself a cup of coffee or tea. And I will see you in our coffee Break 9. Coffee Break: Hi, I wanted to give you some tips and share my experience designing portfolios. You can't even imagine how nice and professional display of your Art can make a difference. I would start by saying it's completely okay to make a Portfolio just for the front of making one without any specific reason. But if you do have a specific reason why you want to make one, Here is my advice and thoughts about the matter. I think the first decision you should make is whether the portfolio is vertical or horizontal. If you have both, see what you have more of, because people don't like to flip over the world call to time. Also, if you plan to showcase your Art, I really recommend to put no more than 30 papers. That is usually a common limit for a person to see without being overwhelmed or board. Because usually you are standing by the person looking. They can feel awkward in this situation. If you having trouble deciding which are the 13th, asked several people to look through your work, then choose their favorites, after their choices, consider it, and then do whatever you want, okay? I think the first five artworks are the most important works in the portfolio. And usually I find the common ground of these five and that indicates the color of the portfolio, the proportions of the Flaps. For example, in this portfolio, I chose a light blue color and three short flaps that goes with the margins of the artwork. So it works beautiful together. Also, the spine is the same color as the orange. And I decided to put the cloth that is the same color as the Outside in this portfolio. I chose to make it entirely black with just a hint of a corner in purple. When I open it. You have to purple flaps so they speak to the outside corner. And when you have the same color on the inside and outside. Actually, the focus is on your artwork, which is very important sometimes. Again, the proportions and the color. And this also gives the direction of opening. I'll show you another case. Here. I decided the light blue with marble paper. When you open it up. You can see here the Flaps are covering the entire portfolio. And when you open it, you can see the calligraphy and the colors are matching the colors of the Outside. So as you can see, there are many choices. Another example is this portfolio. This is covered with leather and leather corners. When you open it, this is marble paper by the way. When you open it, you have three paper flaps and photographs inside. So that's also an option to make paper flaps. It's less durable, but it's also a nice solution for the portfolio. There are times when you have your artwork in different sizes. Then what I recommend you to do is see the largest one and cut vapors to the same size. Then what I recommend you to do is make a passport to and cut windows according to your artwork. So you cut windows to the different dimensions and mount the work underneath. Then you have one size for all the papers. But the artwork inside is in different sizes. I won't get into proportion and how to do it, maybe in future classes. Another important detail that can make a difference is labeled wire labels important. First of all, in most obvious, it tells you what you have inside. It also gives an opening direction to The Portfolio. Usually there are two labels, one for the spine and one for the front cover. The label on the spine is usually texts and indicates what you have inside. If you have a pile of portfolios, you can elegantly store them in. It looks beautiful on the shelf. I really recommend that about the label on the front of the portfolio. There you have many design choices and you can do several things. And I want to show you some example. For instance, what you can do is print on your printer. I'll take the same paper as the inside calligraphy and take a piece of tape and put it on two points. So when you put it inside the printer, it would print. Let me also put one for these to take a piece of tape that actually helps you print not the entire page of a special paper, but just a piece to locate in its place. Have to your printed what you wanted. You can just take it out. You can cut it according to the marks. You see portions here. Here, I want to leave bit of a border around around 3 mm. Let's see how it looks. In this label. I will add some watercolor to give it a handmaiden, unique touch that can make all the different. I hope that tips were helpful in not too overwhelming. In the end, it is your design choices that makes your unique style. I'm eager to see your creations in your design choices, so please share it with us in the Class Projects. I would see each and every submitted work. So please do that, finish your drink or put it aside so you won't tip it over your work. And I will see you in the next lesson. 10. Flaps - Cutting Materials: Flaps. That's what we are going to work on in this lesson. I love flaps and the way they hold your work inside, you can make them from bookbinding board or from thick paper. We are going to work with bookbinding board the same thickness we worked on, on the outside of the portfolio. The flap has two parts. One, the spine, and the second one is the flap itself. The size of the flap is a design choice and it depends on what it holds inside. We are going to prepare three parts. Let's start with the fore edge side. I'll measure 30.5, the same size as the outside. Take my knife and cut. The size of the flap is going to be 6 cm. The spine is going to be 1.3 cm. The market here, flip it over between the dots. Crystallite cut, then going inside. Great. Moving on to the top and bottom, there are going to be 20, 1 cm. Let me mark 21.21. Take my knife between the two dots. First, light cut and then go deeper. The size of the flap is going to be 6 cm. Forage. Remarks. First cut and then deeper. The spinal off the top and bottom is 1 cm. Flip it over and cut it into size. We have another one to cut. So 21, 21. Credit. And the flap itself is going to be six hallmarks, six here and six here. And the spine, which is 1 cm, it's the same size for top and bottom. Let's move on to the cloth. For the cloth, we would need 34.5. Let me mark it here. 34.5. Take my small knife. The width is going to be 12 centimetres. Smart 12 here. And here. The side. Now we have the top and bottom. And there are going to be 25 cm, the length, 12. Don't worry, I made a PDF file with all the flap measurement and layout. You can find it in the class resources. So go ahead and cut all the materials. We have three parts, the forage and the spine, the top and bottom flaps, and the 1 cm spine. And the cloth we have for forage in two pieces for top and bottom. Go ahead and cut everything. And I will see you in the next lesson. 11. Flaps - Constructing the Outside: Hi, welcome back. Are you ready to start Constructing the Flaps? Let's start by taking the face of cloth. I'll put it on the table and bring the long flaps, the forage side, and locate it to centimeters on top and on the right and left. I'll take my ruler and make sure it's 2 cm here and here. I'll take my pencil and mark. The line. Can also put a stopper here. What I'll do is I'll glue the forage side and bring it to the marks. So I'll glue the freud side. We don't need a lot of blue button, even amount all through the Bookbinding board. I'll take the Bookbinding board and bring it to the pencil line on the right and on the top. Move the weight over. Where should my hand? And then with a bone folder, I'll flip it over. Now I want to make sure this is a straight line, so I'll put the stopper here. I'll take my half a centimeter gap and put it here and then take the spine and glue it. I'll bring it to the stopper and to the spacer. Should this doesn't move aside and take it out. Flip it over, and work with a bone folder. Now, what we're going to do is make The Corners. I'll take my small ruler. Mark from corner to corner, half a centimeter. Take my triangular Bueller, Make sure this one is trade here. Move it to the mark. Let's do it to the other side. Corner to corner half a centimeter. Bring the triangular ruler and mark. Now, let me take my knife and the small ruler and cut the corners. Now we're going to make the turnings on the top and bottom. And then on the forage. I'll take a piece of wastepaper, put underneath, glue the short side. Take the wastepaper out with a bone folder lifted towards the board. Then go with bone folder inside the gap. And after the spine like this, Connect it. It would be a bit crooked, but that doesn't matter because afterwards we're going to cut it 45 degrees. Let's work the corner. Flip it over. Takeaways paper. Underneath. Clue, the short side. Can you hear the birds singing in the background? Let's paper out. I'll work with bone folder folded inside. Go with bone folder inside the gap. And then after The Spine. Again it would be a bit crooked inside but it's so K. And then with bone folder work, the corner. What we have left to do is make the forward side. Take a piece of wastepaper, take my glue Hold the FAB and put the glue until the corner. Take the wastepaper out. Work with DICOM folder. Make sure it connects nicely. Making a nice corner to size. That's it for the forage. Let's move on to the sides. I'll take the small piece of cloth and I'll take the flap. Again. I will locate it to centimeters, all rounds, so left and right and on the upper side, remark with to stop or if you have one, Let's glue it. Bring it to the marks. Over. Put a stopper here. And the gap. Bring The Spine, glue it. Spine to the spacer and to the stopper, which should this doesn't move. Take it out. Flip it over. Work with bone folder. Corners, pencil between two corners. Mark half centimeter here. Let's see two meter here. In Mark with a triangular ruler. Take my knife and cut the corners. 1.2. Now we'll take a piece of wastepaper, gluing the bottom side. Take the wastepaper out, take my bone folder and bring it inside the gap. And after the spine. So K that it's a bit crooked. Going afterwards, credit 45 degrees. Work the corner. Move the Class inside the corner. Shifted over. Another piece of ways paper. Do the second side. Takeaway, speak out with a bone folder. Turn the cloth inside. Worked corner. And we had the short side do hold it. Oh, the Ford side to The Corners. Take the waste paper out with a bone folder connected to the inner sides. So that's it. We made two of them. A flap and the top side or the bottom side. I'll leave you to do one by yourself and I will see you in the next lesson. We're going to cover the inside cloth. I'll see you there. 12. Flaps - Gluing The Inner Cloth: Welcome back. Our next step is to connect The Inner Cloth inside the Flaps. Let me start by measuring and cutting the piece that we would need. The cloth needs to be 29 cm, 29 and cut it on 7 cm. The short side, we need 19.5, seven. Now I'll fake flap of the forage side. I'll take the long ruler and the small ruler and measure 2 cm. And mark with a pencil. I'll take the long strip of cloth and check that it's lined up and down. It's supposed to be around seven or 8 mm. I'll take my pins and pin one here. One here. That would give me the mark where to bring the cloth. When I want to glue it. I'll prepare a piece of wastepaper to put underneath here. One will wait. Here. I'll take my glue brush. In blue. The spine. The gap between just up until the Cloth. Don't touch the red. Go after the spine. Take the wastepaper out. Now I'm going to glue only the edge of the cloth. One side. The other side. Moved to waste paper. Now I'm going to bring it to the needles are tens and make sure I have a straight line with a pencil mark. I'll take my bone folder and I'm going to first of all glue the Flaps itself. Then I'm going inside the gap. Then I'm going on the spine. And after the spine side here also will take the pins out. Finish this one. Let's move on to the short side. I'll take a ruler and the small ruler Measure 2 cm. I'll take my pencil and make a line. Now. I'll take the next strip, the smaller one. And look that it's aligned up and down. When I see it's okay. I'll put my pins. One here. One here. Again, wastepaper underneath the slab. And one waiting for me here. How glue inside of the spine. The gap until the pencil mark. Again, don't touch the red cloth. Take the waste paper out Now I'm going to glue only edges. Cloth, one side. And the second side. Take the cloth and bring it to the two needles of tens. Make sure it's in a straight line. First, glue the Flaps itself, then go inside the gap. Moving on to the spine. And after the spine Gluing to the board, then the flat side. Take the pin out. That's it. We've finished the first step. Moving on to cutting the paper would need four-and-a-half centimeters. Let me cut four-and-a-half. And we need 2091 mark. Second and cut. This is for the Ford site. For the two short Flaps. We need also for and-a-half centimeters. The length is 19.5. Now I'm going to take the long flat and I'll take the strip of paper. I want to see. It's even on four sides. I'll take my pins and put one over here. And one over here. That would give me this straight line. On top and bottom. We would locate them exactly as the cloth because it's the same size. Now we'll take a strip of wastepaper and glue the paper. I'll start from the middle Outside. Because it's a small piece of paper. I'm going to glue it directly and not first on the thicker material. And then just the edges. Take the wastepaper side. Now I'm going to take the strip, put it to the needles, and see it comes exactly to the line of the cloth. Take the pins out and work with a bone folder. Nice. Let's move on to the short side. Put it here. Take the small piece of paper. Again. Straight all around. Will take my pins. Locate one here. One here. Will take a wastepaper from the middle Outside. Take the wastepaper out, bring it to the pins. And to the line of the cloth. Will take the pins out. That's it. We have a long one, short one. And I want you to make The last one by yourself. And I will see in the next lesson 13. Adding The Elastic Band: Hi, I love this part of the process. It involves fine details. Before we connect the Flaps, I want us to connect the elastic band. That is because the Flaps are going to cover the entry point. We are going to use an elastic band because I find it much easier to open and close the portfolio rather than the classic ribbon. So how do we know the exact place of the entry point? Let me bring my portfolio and put it on the table. We are going to work on the backside. What I did is I made a PDF file with Corners, one for top and one for bottom. And you can find it in the Class Resources. But before we begin, I want you for better understanding, know why the Measurements of three-and-a-half and 1 cm. The reason we are measuring three-and-a-half centimeters from the forage is because our corner is starting exactly in three-and-a-half centimeters. And then they elastic band will cover just until the corner. It would look beautiful. About the top and bottom. It's 1 cm from the edge. What I want you to do is take a piece of Bookbinding board and put underneath the portfolio so we won't damage the cutting mat. And then you're going to align the template to the corner. I'm going to take my chisel and put it exactly on the dot. And then press down and insert the board. If it's 1 cm, you can keep on going until you have 1 cm. Take the template out. And now I will work with a chisel. I will bring it inside, wiggle it a bit to make the whole bit bigger. I'll take it out. Now, if you don't have a chisel, I want to show you how you can improvise. I'll take the second corner and put it here. This is the bottom corner. And now what I'm going to do is take my knife and cut according to the line, Gerson till the dark. Now, what you can do is take a flat head screwdriver and put it inside the cut and wiggle it a bit. And that way you can insert it nicely. Inside the boards. The chisel is much better. But if you need to improvise, that would work also. Let me flip it over. Now what I'm going to do is take my triangular ruler, put it in the entry point, and make a line around two centimeter long. I'll move it to the other entry point and make a line also. Let me do that to the other side. Align the triangular ruler and make a line. And on the other side, I'll take my small ruler and connect between the lines. One here, one here. Now I'll take my knife and cut a shallow cut. It's not supposed to be very deep. It's a shallow cut. I'll put it in the other pencil mark and make a line. And make a line here. That's one side. Make a shell cut here, also. On the other line. And on the short side. Now I'm taking my chisel and this is the fine detail part. I'm going to just take out one or two layers off the board. Look how nicely it came out. Let me do that on the other side. Taking my chisel, going inside, lifting one or two layers. That's why we did a shallow cut. Now I'm going to take my elastic band and cut it around 2 cm from top and bottom. Now what we have left to do is take the elastic band and inserted inside the portfolio. You can work with a needle or even with the corner of your ruler and put the elastic band inside. To glue it. You can use the double-sided tape and put it inside. Let me Connect here and cut the axes here. So this is one side. Now let's Insert. The other side. Will take a needle and Insert. You can also use the edge of your ruler. Doesn't really matter. Now, what I want you to do is make sure this is tight enough. How can you tell? If you take and put your finger inside? You can feel if it's enough for you wanted a little bit more. Okay. Of course, it depends on the thickness of the spine. I feel this is quite enough. So flip it over. What I'm going to do is cut until where I took the materials out, put some tape and Connect. This is the proper way to connect the elastic bands. Just let you know there is a possibility. You just put it inside and glue it and put the Flaps. It will have a bump, but it would work. But I'm aiming to show you the most professional way, what it took us five-minutes. And it makes all the difference. By the way, if you want to connect ribbons, It's the same process, just on two sides, and it's usually in the center of the portfolio on the forage side. So that's it for this lesson, and I'll see you in the next one. 14. Flaps - Connecting to The Portfolio: Welcome back. All the parts are ready and it's time to connect everything together. Are you ready? Let's take all our flaps. I want to cut them into size. How to take my knife and a two centimeter ruler and just trim it. So it would be everything the same. Cut the top and bottom also. Great. It's not a must, but I like everything underneath the paper to be the same length because it's all in small details right? Now, what I want you to do is take the top and bottom sides. Can take your triangular ruler, put it against the inner spine, move it until the edge and cut a 45-degree angle. Let's do it to the other side, which is the opposite side. Until the end. Can cut 45-degree angle. We're not going to cut the longer flap yet. That's later. Let me drink the portfolio. Now what we want to do is glue first the top and bottom. And we need some kind of stopper, can use our beloved weights. But we can also take a block of wood spine of a book, whatever you have in the house that is 90 degree angle and it can give you the straight 90 degrees when we want to glue the spine and the flap. So let's put our stopper here. And let's prepare the bottom side. The bottom side, the 45-degree angles are supposed to be towards the forage. I want you to check before you do. I want you to check and see that when you close the portfolio, it touching and not preventing it to close. What we can do is take a needle. Mark for ourselves. The right location. Okay, Now, I'll take my flaps. Take a piece of wastes paper underneath and one on top. Now what I want you to do is glue this inner strip, but not the edge because then you can have a stain of the glute showing how to do it. You take the glue and put on the cloth just until the edge. Let's take the place paper out. Now. We're going to bring it to the needle mark. See this is trade. Make sure closes nicely. If not, you can move it a bit. Seats. Okay. Take my bone folder, make sure it's 90 degrees. Connect. We take the pinout. That's it for over. I'll take my bone folder and work on the edge of the inner Portfolio. I like afterwards to lift it and check again that it's okay, it's aligned. When you close, it. Looks nice. Great. Moving on to the other side. Let's put the stopper here. Take the second flap and bring it into place. See when it closes. Looks good. Can also look that it's the same place as the other side. I'll take my pen and mark the location It's folded a bit. Take a piece of wastepaper, put it underneath. Another piece of wastepaper. Put on top. I'm going to glue only the upper side of the cloth. Take the wastepaper out. I'll bring it to the needle. Let's close it and see take it looks great. Work with a bone folder on the edge. Take the pin out. Let the Flaps fall over. Now I'm checking again, lifting, looking. It's okay. I can move on to the next forage side. Now. I'm taking the Ford side. A bit. Can work with bone folder. I'll take my stopper and put it here. Now, remember this is the length of the portfolio, so we need to make sure it's exactly in place. Now what I'm going to do is take my triangular ruler in after I see everything is straight here, top and bottom. I'm going to take my knife, put the triangular ruler exactly into place and cut. Let me do that for the other side. If you having trouble working also with your left hand, you could take a pencil and make a very thin line exactly where the triangle here of the first edge and cut it Outside of the portfolio. Make sure everything is okay before you start doing. Looks great. Okay. Let's take another piece of wastepaper. Put underneath. And a wastepaper on top. Again, I'm going to glue only the upper side. Note the edge. Up until the end. Take the waste paper out. Now, don't be alarmed. You have time to move it around and see it's exactly in the place you wanted to be. I feel it's on the stopper. It looks good here. Maybe a bit to the right. Yeah, it moves. Nice. Let's see here. Looks good. I'm going to glue it here. And glute here. Let it fall back. Let's check it again. So that's it. We have the two flaps for bottom and top forage and everything fits nicely. I'll let it dry a bit. And I will see you in the next lesson. 15. Lining With Paper: Hi, There's one more thing to do before we finish our portfolio, and that is to cover the inside with paper. I really recommend you to use 200 gram paper. And I'm going to cut it a little bit smaller than A4 so you can see the cloth all around the edges. Let me bring the piece of paper and we're going to cut it to size, which is going to be 29.5 on 20.5. So let me measure 29.5 here and cut and 20.5 here and cut it. You do the next 129.5 on 20.5 and cut. Let me bring the portfolio. First. We're going to do the bottom and then the top. So I'm going to take my paper and locate everything. All four sides are equal. Take a stopper and put it here. So right and left are even. And now I'm going to take my pins. And I can talk like this. So I won't put my pin in my mouth and locate one here. And one here. That would help me. When I bring the paper to bring it exactly into place. I'm going to take a piece of wastepaper, put it here, the paper on it, and piece of weight. Now going to take my big glue brush. And I'm going to glue only the inside, only the bookbinding board. So try not to touch the cloth. Now, I'm going to glue only the edges of the paper. Take the weight out, take my wastepaper and bring it to the needles and to the stopper. See everything sits in place. Nice. I'll take my bone folder and start working to move this side. Let me take out the pins. Thank you. And connect everything around. Great, the bottom side is ready. Let me bring another piece of paper. Now. I'm going to locate the paper. I'll take my stopper and put it here near the spine. So I see it's parallel, right and left. On top and bottom. I'll take my pins and put one here. And I'll put one here. Again. Big brush. Only on the board. Who to wait here so it won't move. Glue edges of the paper. The paper. Bring it to the stopper and to the pins. See two lines. You can move it if you need. Look nice here and here. Move the weight and work with the bone folder. I'll take out the pins. That's it. We finished our portfolio. Let me clear out everything here and I'll see you in the next and final lesson. 16. Conclusion: Congratulations on completing this course. I'm very proud of you. I want to take a moment, observe what we have created and listen to the birds. Actually, the biggest challenge while filming this course was to talk when the birds are singing in the background. I guess that's what happens when your studio is in such a great place. Some closing remarks. I want to thank you again for participating in this course and adding a Portfolio to your skill set. Learning something new is a great thing, and I'm truly honored to be your teacher. I am eager to see your Portfolio and what you decided to put inside, so please share it with us in the Class Project. I promise to see every submitted work and answer questions if you have any. You're welcome to see my previous classes and follow me here on Skillshare and Instagram, then you would be notified when a new class is published. One more thing, if you enjoyed this class, I would really appreciate it. If you can leave a review that would help others find it. So that's it for this course. Thank you again for being here and I will see you in my next course.