Make Miniature Books: Bookbinding for Beginners

1. Introduction: Do you love tiny things? I love tiny things. There's something very appealing about them. Let's make tiny books together. Hi, I'm Shelly Scale. I'm an artist, illustrator, book lover, order of tiny things, and I'm also a top teacher here on Skillshare. You might have seen my miniature watercolor paintings. I go through periods where I just want to work small sure I can do that on a larger page, but I find it much more pleasing to work in a We sketchbook. This class is going to cover how to make a delightful, fun sized book, including how to bind your paper together, depending on what materials you've got. Options for creating unique, personalized covers. How to include charming accessories like bookmarks, enclosures, and belly bands. You don't need anything fancy. I started off with one piece of paper and a needle in the thread. You're going to end up with one or maybe several teeny and unique books that are a work of art in and of themselves, and that's just the start. Perhaps you'll paint in them or create tiny scrapbooks, use them as props or give them as gifts. The possibilities are endless. If you love little things, this is the class for you. If you're feeling burnt out, working at this small scale can gently ease you back into your creativity. If you've been curious about book binding, but haven't yet taken the leap, this class is a low stress entry point. Are you ready? Okay. Let's do this. 2. Class Project: So maybe making a book sounds intimidating, but a point size one, not so much. That's exactly what we're going to do in this class. I'm going to show you several different ways of putting miniature books together, including the extras that really make them shine like covers and enclosures. Then you'll pick one of these and make it yourself. If you're new to making books, I recommend you watch the class all the way through, then go back and review the lessons you want to try. That way, you'll have a feel for what the possibilities are and what you're drawn to. I made my first tiny book, this book, The day I came to the very last sheet of paper in a fancy watercolor pad that had once belonged to my grandmother. I didn't want to use that bit of paper because then the pad would be all gone. To eke out, I decided to turn it into a little sketchbook, creating more pages to use. I had no idea what I was doing, but I could maybe sew the pages together and it worked. I hadn't figured out covers or bookmarks or things to keep the book closed yet. That all came with time. Okay. Throughout this class, I'll be showing you my way of doing things. If you've got questions or if there's any book binders out there that want to offer ideas or suggestions, you can pop all of that into the class discussion area. Okay. Along the way, I'll share the tips I've picked up to help simplify the process. You don't need to be an artist and you don't need anything complicated to get started. I'll guide you step by step through the process. There's a full list of required and optional materials available in the resources section, but you'll need paper. This can be any kind you like. I've mostly used scraps of watercolor paper, but you can use any kind of paper you like in your book. You'll need something to cut the paper with, scissors, a craft knife, a paper cutter. Although carefully ripping the paper is a possibility to in most cases. For most of the options, I show you, you'll need something to hold the pages together, either PVA glue, thread or twine. I've used twine and normal thread. Embroidery thread also works, and if you want to get really fancy, you can use waxed thread, which is what book binders traditionally used. Everything else is optional, ribbon or twin for bookmarks and enclosure, nice paper for the covers. I've used plain card, paper with abstract paintings I've made, wrapping paper, pretty paper that I've bought from a bookbinder shop. I've used all of those things to make covers, and they all look great. Along the way, I encourage you to experiment with these different options and learn what you enjoy working most with and create adorable little books that are uniquely yours. I'd love it if you felt willing to share your mini masterpieces by adding a project to the projects gallery. If you'd like to share what you've made on Instagram, please feel free to tag me so I can see what you've made there too. I'm at Shelly Scale. Although fill disclosure, I'm not particularly active on there, if you want to keep up with what I'm doing, you might want to sign up to my newsletter and you'll see my current projects. My aim for this class is to give you the tools to create any kind of Biju book that you like confidently, to get comfortable creating these magical mini treasures and take as much delight in it as I do. So let's get into this. Okay. 3. A Word About Covers: Okay. Hello. So before we get started making our mini books, I wanted to talk about covers. They say don't judge a book by its cover, but I think we all do. Covers are absolutely not necessary. My first sketchbook had no covers. I just made it and then went for it. But that said, covers are super fun. It's a way to add your personality, your interests, a bit of visual appeal to your book. I encourage you to give it a try even though you don't need them. You can do all kinds of things for covers. You can use just plain card. This was some scrap card I got with some packaging that I cut and used for the covers here. You can use wrapping paper. This was Christmas wrapping paper that I repurposed for a cover. You can paint and take what you paint and turn that into a cover. These pieces here where just me playing around with colors that I liked. I let them dry, I flatten them as best I could and then use those for my covers. You can also buy particular paper that's used for covers. A lot of these here like this and this one. These are special art papers, and I got them from an online book binding shop. I'll pop the link in the class description below. These ones are cotton rag papers and they used to be available in art stores where I live, although I have to get them online now, maybe you'll have more luck where you live. So You can use pretty much anything to make your covers, and I encourage you to do that. You can also decorate them. I've used little stamps to write words on here that I find inspirational. If you're into washi tape, you can decorate it with that or with stickers. Just go nuts, have fun with it. They're a nice addition to the fun part of making a book. Okay. So with that all said, let's make a start actually making the books. Come join me for our first lesson, which is looking at accordion fold books. Okay. 4. Make an Accordion Fold Book: Hello again. Right? I bet you're eager to get started. In these first practical lessons, we're going to look at making a folding book. It's called an accordion book because what you end up with is accordion like see the main thing you need for this lesson is paper. Unlike the methods that follow with this one, you can't do this easily with scraps unless they are big scraps. I'm looking at you packing paper. You'll also want something to cut the paper with. Depending on how thick your paper is, you might want something to help crease the paper. A bone folder, if you have one. A plastic ruler, or just a bit of elbow grease. This method relies on folding and cutting the paper in a specific way. The more precise your folds and cuts are, the neater the outcome you're going to get. The shape and orientation of your original piece of paper will determine the shape of the finished book pages. Plan accordingly for the finished piece that you'd like. I'm going to show you two examples here. One with scrap paper I got as packing materials, and one with watercolor paper. Let's crack on. The first thing we're going to do is get our piece of paper into the shape that we want the final book to be. In this case, I'm making a rectangular shape, because I want a rectangular book. When I'm finished in the second example, I'll show you doing this with a square shape and that results in a square shaped book top tip. I use the flat end of my metal ruler to help me make the right angles here, because it's at a right angle to the long end of the ruler. That helps me tidy up the rectangle that I'm making. Once you've got your paper into the correct shape, you're going to start making folds. You want these to be as precise as possible because that will determine how neat your end result is. Take your paper, fold it in half, it doesn't matter in which direction you'll do it in. Both make a sharp crease. I suggest you start in the middle and push out to the edges like I'm doing. Then open it out and fold each of the edges into the center line that you've just made. Then what you're going to do is you're going to rotate your paper and repeat the same process, but in the opposite direction. Then you fold it in half, make a nice sharp crease, and then you can fold each section in half, taking the time to make sure each of those creases is nice and sharp. What you should have now is your piece of paper, whether you decided to go for a rectangular or a square shape within it, it should be divided up into 16 little mini pages via the folds. That's what you're going to end up with. Once you're happy with the folds that you've got, unfold the whole thing, and you're going to make three cuts in alternating directions. I'm going to create a portrait style book. The cuts I make are with the orientation of the paper in that portrait mode. If you want it in landscape, rotate at 90 degrees and follow the same process. They alternate these cuts, which side you come in from and you've got three of them and they go three of these many pages deep. Take care with your cuts because these are going to divide your pages and make sure that they alternate. Once you've got your cuts, this is where the magic happens. Rotate your paper so that in the upper right hand corner, you have the start of a cut. Then from there, you're going to fold in alternate directions. Your first fold, the paper folds up and over. The second fold, it's going to fold under and behind. And you're going to alternate that over and under all the way through this piece of paper. I go over and under. Then when it comes to folding down the way, it's the same thing. I'm at a point where I would go behind and under. I just do that. But instead of going across the way I go down the way, then I work my way back along using the same pattern over under, under. Now I've got little sketchbook for this second example, I'm using thicker paper. This is thick watercolor paper, which makes it slightly harder to fold. I want it to be square. I'm going for ten x 10 " because my paper is already 10 " wide. This just means I need to only make one cut. As you can see in both examples, I size the book to whatever paper I've got. Some books will be larger, some will be smaller. It just depends on what I have to hand. Now I've created a square. I'm going to fold it in half because this is thicker, it's trickier to fold, but I just have to push harder. I start in the middle and then go out to the edges. I'm using this roller that I got from printmaking to help make the creases really tight. But of course you don't have to use this. You can use all kinds of other tools if you like to help, Like a roller or a clean rolling pin. If you've got really thick paper, I fold from the outside into that central crease. Starting in the center, I push out towards the edges and then use my little roller thing to make the creases really sharp. However you fold your paper, make sure that the creases are as sharp as you can get them. Then rotate your paper 90 degrees and repeat this process. You first fold it in half, get a nice sharp crease, and then fold from the outside into that center line. You want to get this as exact as possible so that your finished book will fold nicely and fold up neatly. If your folds are off, it will look a little bit wonky once you accordion it up. That's happened to me. If it happens to you, don't worry. It's just a learning thing, right? Once we've got our paper folded into 16 little squares, we're going to make our cuts. We make three cuts starting on alternate sides, and we go three little squares in on each side. Try and make your cuts as precise as possible, because again, this will affect how neat your finished product is. If you use a craft knife like me, make sure to keep your fingers well away from the edge of that ruler so you don't end up with any nasty cuts. Once you've made your cuts, now you can start folding again. You want to have the upper right corner is where you start. And I start over, and then under, and then over, and so on, all the way down. It doesn't matter if you're going sideways or vertical. It's the same process. Then when you're done, you end up with a little accordion fold sketchbook. As you can see, mine doesn't want to stay put. This is why we need an enclosure of some description to wrap around like this thing I took off of a lint bunny. You can also use hair bands or elastics or just a piece of ribbon or twine. You can also make a thing to keep it shut out of paper. These are called belly bands. I'll teach you how to make one in the next lesson. Now you've got a basic mini accordion style book. Come join me in the next lesson to look at adding some accessories and flavor to your books. 5. Accessorise your Accordion Fold Book: In this lesson, we're going to look at customizing your accordion fold book with covers and personalized enclosures. This is where you can really make these books your own. Let's dig in. For this lesson, you'll want whatever you want to use for a cover and something to tie around the book to keep it shut, ribbon or twine or good options as is paper. The covers are going to stick to the first and the last pages. Choose something fairly solid. I'm using this piece of watercolor paper that I've previously decorated. I'm going to draw around that first page to create a template and then cut that out and use that to create the other cover. It becomes my template for the second cover. That way, they'll both be about the same size. I often make them slightly larger than the page. Although that's not strictly necessary. I just like the finished product that gives. Maybe you want to experiment and see which you prefer. And then going to get some scrap paper down to protect my work surface from glue and then check your folding direction so that you glue the correct side of your paper. More than once I've glued the wrong side of my paper and it's really annoying. Just take a minute to make sure that you're gluing the outside of your sketchbook. Whether that's the front or the back, it doesn't matter. It's always the outside edge that you're gluing. Glue your edge. I'm using a glue stick. You can use PVA or any other kind of glue that you prefer. Glue it firmly and then decide the way up you want your cover and smooth it down. Then repeat on the back, making sure that you do the outside of the paper. Get your cover, arrange the way you want it, smooh it down. And there you've got a book. Okay. Because of the nature of these books, the accordion style. It's quite nice to put something around it to keep it all together. I call these a wrap around. You can use ribbon or twin or fabric scraps. Because of the upcycled nature of this particular book, I thought some rustic looking twin would be a nice way to finish it off as wrap around to keep the book shut when it's not in use. It also makes it look like a cute little gift and I like that. I think it's appealing. There we go. One cute, many book all finished. In this example, we're going to make a cover that's slightly larger than the book itself. Once I've decided what I'm going to use, I'm going to trace around the paper, leaving a little gap so that the cover is oversized. How big a gap you want to leave is really up to yourself. You can experiment with different options to see what you prefer. I'm going for a gap that's maybe at most a centimeter. I'll cut one out and then use that as a template to create the second one so that they're the same size. This card is pretty stiff, so it's a little bit tricky to cut through. This is what comes of using whatever I've got lying around. I don't know if you're anything like me, but I tend to keep scraps of different things with that thought of, I'm sure this will come in handy at some point. It has, that worked. Now I've got two squares of black I need to get this lined up with the outside cover so that the gap is pretty much the same all the way around. I line up to a point where I'm happy with it and I mark it with my pencil. I'm going to get a pair of scissors and round off those edges, so they're not quite so sharp. This is a totally optional step. You can do it if you like. Maybe if you've got card that's as thick as mine, you might want to consider this because those corners can be quite sharp and it's annoying if you jab your fingers on them. This is also a good time to add any extra embellishments. I didn't think about doing this now. I do it later, but really it's much easier if you do it before you stick it on. As before, you want to put some scrap paper down to protect your work surface and make sure that you glue the outside of the book. I'm using my trusty glue stick here, gluing the outside of the book pretty thoroughly, and then lining it up with the marks that I made earlier, checking where I like them and then squishing it. Also wipe off, there's a bit of excess glue, I think I put quite a lot on there. I'll wipe off the excess so it doesn't stick to things I don't want it to. Next, I'm going to line up my covers because they're oversized. This is a helpful step to make sure that the covers will actually line up once you put it all together. I line them up and then make a mark on the other cover except I did on the wrong cover. Hopefully, you will line up and draw on the cover that isn't yet glued and that'll tell you where to line up your book so that the covers are evenly paired up. Check that it looks okay and then glue the outside of your accordion book to the cover and wipe off any excess glue. Fold it back up. Then we've got our little book. After I made the cover, I decided I'd like to decorate it with an inspirational word. I've got these super cute little letter stamps and metallic ink pad. I've used that to decorate the cover. If you want to decorate your covers, you can do whatever you like. You can use stamps, you can use stickers, you can paint on it. I would recommend doing it before you attach it to the book because it's a little bit easier, but as you can see, you don't have to, I managed to do it while it was still attached. This time around, I'm going to make a belly band. That's the name we give to a bit of paper that snugly encloses your book and keeps it together. To make that, I'm going to cut a strip of paper, which is at least twice the width with extra for overlap, so you can glue it together. Maybe 2.5 times or three times the width of your book because you'll need a little bit extra to cover the thickness of your book. Wrap it around, starting with the center of the book in the middle of the band, and that mark will tell you what area to glue, to get your scrap paper out and glue that section of the belly band. Make sure it's liberally coated with glue. And then you're going to pinch it into place and hold it while the glue sets. You can also use pegs or clips to keep it in place while the glue sets. If you've used a glue stick, that should be quite fast. You may also want to decorate your belly band. Generally, that's easier to do before you glue it, but if like me, you forget, you can do it afterwards. Once your belly band is decorated and the glues stuck, you can slip that onto your book and it'll hold it nice and snugly for you. And that's your accordion style sketchbook. Made. Well done. Now you've got a completely personalized, tiny accordion style book. Don't forget to snap a picture and add it to your project. This style of mini book doesn't lend itself to a bookmark which is included as part of the book. We'll look at those with our other styles of tiny books. Come and join me for the first of those the glued or perfect bound book. 6. Produce a Perfect Bound Book: Hello. In this class, we're going to make a book bound together by glue. This is a perfect bound book. If you want to have a cover bookmark or wraparound enclosure, it's worth planning that in from the beginning as it's much easier to add them during the process than later. You can use scraps for paper for this. You'll just need to cut them all to the same size, and that's what I'll be doing. For this lesson, we'll need paper, something to cut the paper with, PVA or craft glue, and something heavy like a few big books away or similar. I'm using a little sculpture. If you want a bookmark, you'll need ribbon, and that's about it. So let's get started. The first thing you're going to do is decide how big your pages are going to be and what shape they're going to be, whether you want them square or rectangular. Once you've decided that, cut your first page. Top tip here is, take your time doing this. Make sure that you get it exactly the size and shape that you want because you're going to use this first page as a template for all the other pages in your book. Once you're happy with the size and the shape, use that as a template to mark on all your other bits of paper, if you're using scraps or if you're using one big piece of paper, you can mark it all on that same piece. Then take your time to cut as many bits of paper as you like. There's not really a practical limit I would give on how many pages to include with this method. You can bind a lot using this or a little it's entirely up to you. I'm going to fast forward through this because I don't think you need to see me cutting out 16 or 20 different pieces of paper. So cut as many pages as you like, try and get them as accurate as possible. Then for your covers, you're going to cut two pages of that same size, but do it out of some cheap paper, some scrap paper that you don't really care about. You're going to use those as the skeleton for your covers. It really doesn't matter what this paper looks like because you're not going to see it in the end. Those two bits of cheap paper, you're going to put one on the top and one on the bottom of your stack of paper. Once you've got it all cut, arrange it neatly, try and get it as tidy as you can. Then we're going to move on to the next step, which is glue in your book. I'm using a mixture of PVA glue and acrylic paint. I've just done this so that it shows up better on camera. You absolutely don't need to do this. I recommend you just use PVA or craft glue straight out of the tub. The first thing you're going to do is find somewhere where you can do the gluing. I've sandwiched my paper hanging over the edge of my table with a heavy object. It's a sculpture on top of it. You can do the same thing at the edge of your desk with some books or between two books. What I've done is I dangle it off the edge a little bit so that any stray bits of glue don't get on the things that are sandwiching it together. Once you've got everything in place, take something sharp. I'm using my craft knife here and rough up the edge or going to glue a little bit. This just helps the glue sink into the paper a bit better. It's not strictly necessary. I didn't know about doing this the first time I made one of these books and it worked okay. But if you do remember, rough up your pages just a little bit on that edge that you're going to glue. And once you've done that, just take your glue and apply it to that edge as thickly as you can get away with without it dripping. Try not to let the glue go too far into any of the pieces of paper because when you open it up, that'll be a little bit that you can't use because it's got glue on it. My bottom scrap bit of paper doesn't really want to stick, so I'm squdging it up and adding extra glue to try and keep it in place. And then you have to be patient, leave it to dry thoroughly. If you're going to add a bookmark, I suggest you add it on the second gluing. So cut a piece of ribbon to size. It needs to be longer than the book so that it dangles out at the end and can wrap around and glue onto the spine. I always stick down the end of the ribbon that I've cut because that's the rough end that's more likely to come undone. Once you've got your piece of ribbon, line up where you want it to be along the spine. If the glue is still a little bit tacky that actually can help hold it in place, well, you get your glue and do another layer on top of the ribbon and down the spine. So you want it to enclose the ribbon completely, as well as going over any exposed bits of paper. If your ribbon is uncooperative like mine, you can hold it in place while you apply the glue. Usually, once you've got a bit of glue down, that'll help stick it into place. As before, add a thickesh layer of glue and then rest the edge of your ribbon that isn't being glued somewhere, so it's not dangling down. That means it's less likely to fall off while it's still being glued into place. Then make sure you've got a nice thick layer of glue that your ribbon is being supported at the other end and then leave it to dry completely. And that's done with the gluing. It only really needs two coats. If you're worried, maybe you think you've not done the glue thick enough or something, you can do a third coat. Don't go mad though. You don't need loads and loads of coats because then the book becomes really stiff and hard to open. But that's it, you have glued together your little book. Okay. All right. Now we've got our perfect bound book. Join me in the next lesson where we'll add amazing covers and wraparound enclosures. Don't forget to take progress picks along the way so you can see how your book grows and turns into your little masterpiece. We'll see you there. 7. Perfect Bound Covers and Wrap-Arounds: All right. In this lesson, we're going to look at customizing your perfect bound book with covers and enclosures. For the wraparound enclosure, you'll need ribbon or twine or wool, and for your cover, you'll need your chosen cover paper, as well as paper to use as lining paper. This can be the same as your cover paper or you could use some plain colored paper. You'll also need I use a glue stick, but other glues work fine as well, and you'll need some scrap paper to protect your work surface while you glue. Let's do this. Choose whatever decorative paper you'd like to use today, and I do recommend paper rather than card because it'll be easier for making this kind of cover. I'm using this decorative paper that I got online. What to do is place your book on it and then measure about 1 centimeter gap around each side. You'll need this gap to fold the paper in to make sure it's secure. You then roll the book over so that takes into account the thickness of the spine and continue with that 1 centimeter gap and then do that same gap along the short end so that your cover paper covers the whole entire outside of the book, both the front and back pages and the spine. Once you've got your marks down, cut it out from your paper and make any little tidying up cuts that you need to do to get it looking how you want it to look. Get some scrap paper out to protect your work surface from the glue, and then you're going to glue the cover pages, not the nice paper that you're using to cover your book. Start with one side, coat it well in glue, and then press it down firmly onto your cover paper. Check your orientation. If your paper has orientation to make sure you've got it the right way up, I had it backwards. Then secure the paper and add glue on the other cover. You're not going to glue the spine, that'll make it hard for the book to open and shut, so you're going to leave the spine unglued. You're just gluing the covers. Then roll over and make a little sandwich with your book and press down carefully on all the edges to make sure that the paper is securely attached. Then once your glues dry, you're going to cut the inside edges so that you can fold over neatly. You start maybe 2 millimeters away from the corner so that none of that scrap paper will be exposed when you fold it in. And I'm cutting not quite at 45 degrees to make these little corner pieces here. If you cut out exactly 45 degrees, then bits of your kind of scrap paper may show through when you fold over. Do the same on both external corners. You cut in leaving maybe a two millimeter gap, and then for the spine, you're going to cut in and create a little corner here too. Make sure you take into account the thickness of the spine when you're cutting those wedges out. Because once you've done that, you're then going to really carefully cut those little those little flaps that are there at the spine. You're just going to cut them straight off flush with the book. Be careful while you're doing this so that you get that cut in the right place and make sure that you don't accidentally cut your ribbon that you spent so long carefully attaching. If you want to use wrap around to keep your book closed, this is the time to add it in. First, measure out the length of twin or fabric that you're going to use. It should be at least four book widths long, although six or eight would be even better. Tie a knot in the end so that it doesn't unravel. Then what you're going to do is you're going to cut a hole in that little flap at the very back of your book. You can poke it through with a needle or I'm going to use a craft knife here. I'm putting a bit of card down to protect my surface, and I choose the middle. And I poke that through to make a hole that I can then thread that twin through and make sure the needle that I'm going to use fits through that hole and then thread the needle to get the twin onto it. Once I've done that, I poke the twin through coming from the outside to the inside of the books so that my knot is on the outside. As you see, when I fold over, That's going to hold this enclosure in place as I glue things down. That'll glue this in place as well. Now it's time to glue the cover down. I'm going to start with the tops and bottoms just so that the paper doesn't get when I'm gluing it down. It's good to take each opposite side and make sure they're glued. Sort of pairs. Take your time with the folding, make sure that everything's nice and sharp and then do the same on the other side, so the tops and the bottoms. Then you can go back and do that last little flap on each of the covers. Careful, you don't get glue on your enclosure, twin or ribbon, then glue it down, which helps hold that enclosure in place. At this point, you can say that you're finished and you've got a very cute little book with a cover, bookmark and an enclosure. But I like to add internal cover panels. I think it just finishes off really nice and neatly. You can use any kind of paper for this. You can use your cover paper. I like to use black. Um, so I've just got some black craft paper here. I'm cutting it to just slightly smaller than the page size so that we see a little bit of the cover peeking around the edge. And so that this internal cover panel isn't visible when the book is shut. There's no little bits going to peek over the outside. Once you've cut your first cover panel, you can use that as a template to cut your second one. Cover the cover panel with glue, not your book, and then line up carefully to where you want it to be, smooth it down and wipe away any excess glue, and then repeat for the other side. This also has the benefit of covering up any exposed bits of your twin or ribbon from the back cover panel as well, which makes it look extra neat and polished. I'm going to rub off some bits of glue that I've managed to get onto that cover panel so that it doesn't stick to that back page when I keep it closed. If you're worried about that, put some scrap paper in between your front and back covers and the rest of the book while it's drying. Now you've got a completely personalized tiny perfect bound book. Don't forget to snap a picture and add it to your project. Next, we'll be looking at books that are held together by stitching. You don't need to be any good at sewing to do this, though, so don't worry. Come join me for the first of these, the simple stitch bound book. Okay. 8. Create a Simple Stitched Book: Hello. In this class, we're going to make a book held together by some super simple stitching. With this approach, you can add bookmarks or an enclosure later, but it's easiest to include the cover from the beginning. You can use scraps of paper for this. They'll just need to be at least twice the length you want your finished pages to be. You'll also find that depending on how thick your paper is, there's a practical limit to how many bits of paper you can find together with this method. What we'll need for this lesson is paper, something to cut the paper with and the needle and thread. I use twine in this example, but I have also used normal sewing thread just doubled up in the past. My very first one here was made with simple white sewing thread, although you can maybe see where the color has stained the thread. You might want to choose a darker color if that would bother you. Embroidery thread will also work. If you want to get really fancy, you can use waxed thread, which is what book binders traditionally used. You'll also need something heavy like a few big books, a weight or something similar. Because my paper is super thick, I use roller from printmaking to help fold the paper. You don't need to do this. You can use a plastic ruler or bone folder. They come in plastic in bamboo too or just your fingers and hands. If you want to cover, you'll need cover paper that's cut to the same size as the other pages in your book for durability, I'd recommend a reasonable thickness of paper or card for your cover. That says. Let's get started. The first thing you're going to do is decide how big you want your pages to be. I'm using scrap, so that kind decides it for me to a certain extent. But if you have a whole paper, then you're a little bit more free with what you can decide here. Instead of cutting my pages, I'm tearing them here, that'll give them a nice rough edge effect that I think can be quite cute. I'm using that roller that I've got from printmaking to help me make the edges sharp. You can use folding tools, you can use rulers, you can use rolling pins, wine bottles, whatever you've got to hand, if you've got thick paper that needs a bit more force to be folded. Once you've got all your papers, the size you'd like them to be stack them all up one on top of each other to make the pile that will form your book. When you've got as many pages as you want to make your book, you're going to fold them over in half all at the same time. You've got one big pile that's folded in half. Because my paper is so thick, it's really hard to get this folded in half, and I decide to take a few pages out to make it fold more nicely. You may have the same issue if you use thick paper like me. This is looking a lot better. It's a lot sharper, tighter fold. That's going to work for my book. I'm going to set it under something heavy to help squish those pages down further and help them keep their shape. Do this for as long as your patients will allow. If you're going to make a cover and I suggest you do because covers are fun. This is the right time to cut your paper to size for that and you want it to be about the same size as your cover. You might want to make it slightly longer so that the pages don't poke out. But if you don't, that's fine. I forgot to do that. Once you've got your cover ready, slip it over your stack of pages, and that's going to be your little book. If your patient, put them all under a heavy weight and leave them for a while to get used to that folded shape. This is particularly if your pages are thick like mine. If your pages poke out from your cover like Mind, then you can cut them to size, and that's exactly what I do. Mine are too thick for scissors to work here, so I use well, I could take it all apart and use scissors, but I don't want to. I use my craft knife and I just trim them down one page at a time. Once I'm happy with the look of my book, I'm going to prepare it for sewing. What to do to prepare your book for sewing is you open it back up again and on your inner seam, Mark a 0.1 third of the way in on each side. You're going to poke holes through at that point because that's going to be the place where the sewing comes in and out. First time I did this, I used a needle. I think I also tried a scalpel that works fine. This time around, I found this pokey tool at a craft shop. I think it's called a piercing A. And I'm going to use that. I'm going to put some card down to protect my cutting surface because stabbing from the top can leave holes in it and I don't want that. Get your book ready to be poked and I'm going to poke through and I suggest you do the same poke through all the pages at the same time. You want to make sure that it goes all the way through and out the cover. That's the path that your needle is going to take. Take care to make sure those holes are lined up with that exact center crease so that your stitching will be in the place that you want it to be for a neat finished product. Once you've poked the hole, check that the needle you're going to use with your thread fits through the hole. It's worth poking that needle through that hole back and forth a couple of times just to make sure the thicker the thread you use, the fewer times you'll have to stitch your book. With this thickness that I'm using, I'll only need to go in and out of the pages once. If I was using normal thread, I'd go around several times. Bear that in mind when you're making your book. Although I'm only sewing it once, you may need to do it multiple times depending on the thickness of the thread that you use. Once you've got your needle threaded with whatever you're going to use, then poke it through your pages. Don't worry. If you've got a bit of difficulty like me and your book starts to come apart, that's fine. It happens. You can just poke it back together because the thread is going to hold it together once it's through. When you're sewing it, make sure to not your thread and start from the outside of the book. Start from the outside and poke your thread through to the inside. Once you've got it through, thread your needle through the second hole that you've got and then knot it securely on the other side, or go back around and look it through a few times if you're using thinner thread to help it be more secure. While you've done it enough times, that's you and you can use any excess as a little bookmark. If you want to be fancy, you can do that whole process, but measure out a much longer bit of thread because you'll use the other end as your wrap around. You'll thread your needle and tie a knot on the end as you normally would. But when you pull it through that first hole, make sure to leave a very long tail long enough to wrap around your book several times and then tie a second knot to secure the thread against the book. Then you thread the needle up and out the second hole in your book and tie another knot on the outside to keep that secure. Again, if you're using thinner thread, you may need to go around that loop several times before it's ready to be tied off. Then you can use the excess thread on the top as your bookmark. Trim any excess, if either your bookmark or your wrap around is too long. Make sure both are knotted so they don't fray and you've got your simple sown book. Okay. Well done. Now you've got a super quick personalized stitched book. Don't forget to snap a picture and add it to your project. Next, we'll be looking at a more complex form of stitched book. Unlike the simple sewing method, this can handle pretty much as many pages as you could possibly want to bind. The binding method is a bit more complex, but you still don't need to be any good at sewing for this either. You just need a bit of patience. Come and join me to learn how to make a coptic bound book. 9. Prepare a Coptic Bound Book: Hello. In this class, we're going to make a book bound together with a form of stitching called Coptic. This is a form of binding where the stitches are on display. They're the hero of the piece and definitely part of the beauty of the finished book. You can create patterns in the stitching if you like or leave it simple. Both are beautiful. This technique is also unusual because the covers aren't attached to each other. The front and back covers are independent. You can use scraps of paper to make this book as well. They'll just need to be twice the length that you want your finished pages to be because again, they're folded over. What we need for this is paper and something to cut it with and a needle and thread. In this example, I'm going to use normal sewing thread that I've just doubled up, but you can use twin embroidery thread, or if you want to get really fancy, you can use that waxed thread that book binders traditionally used. Thick covers are a typical part of this book as well, so you'll want something to use for your cover. I'll show you how to make them thick even starting with thin paper. As with the perfect bound book, you'll want scrap paper, your cover paper or card and lining paper, which can be the cover paper or just plain colored paper. Once you've got your stuff, let's get started. The first thing you're going to do is decide how big you want your pages to be. Make your first page double that width and use that to make all your pages the same size. You can cut or tear them like I'm doing. Once you've got all of your pages, the right size, you're going to put them into little bundles of two. In book binding, those bundles are referred to as signatures. You're going to fold your signatures together. The two pages, much like what we did with the simple stitch, where you did all the pages together. This time we're doing it just with two pages, and you're going to fold those two pages together for each of your signatures. You'll have a little stack of fold signatures. This is what's going to make up the paper for your book. Okay. Once you've got your signatures all folded, if you like, you can leave them under something heavy, well, you start to make your covers. For this type of binding, we'll make our covers up front because we then stitch the covers as part of the book binding, it has to be done at this stage. For the covers, we're going to use cover paper at this time, not covering card. The reason for that is that we're going to make it in a similar way as we did for the perfect bound book. That is to say, we'll have a piece of cheap scrap paper that will be the interior that will then completely cover over with the cover paper and the lining paper. Okay cut your paper to size, and then we're going to cover this with whatever you use for your cover paper. In this case, I'm using a scrap of decorative paper that I've had from previous projects. I think it's cotton rag paper. It's lovely if you ever get to feel that kind of stuff. Whatever paper you're using, mark the size of scrap paper that you've cut out and then add at least a centimeter, if not more to wrap around and glue and hold on securely. Okay. Top tip, I like me, you're using cover paper that has a geometric or a symmetrical pattern on it, take the time to line up and get it right. You'll be much happier with your finished product if you spend the time now. I'm taking time to get it right and then once I'm happy with it, I'll cut it out. Once your paper is cut, get some scrap paper down to protect your work surface, and then glue that scrap paper, the interior page that we won't see. Apply the glue to that, and then stick that to your decorative paper. If you've got a specific pattern like I do, take care to get it lined up how you want it. Squish it down to make sure it sticks. What I do is I tuck it under the cutting mat I'm using or my scrap paper so it gets extra squished when I work on the second cover. You might want to try that. Once you've got both pieces of paper attached, cut the corners on your decorative page. It's almost 45 degrees. This is just like we did in the perfect bound books, so it's not quite 45 degrees, and make sure not to cut right up to the edge of your interior paper. You need that tiny two millimeter gap space left to ensure that none of that interior paper is exposed when you fold it over. Once you've made your cuts, you're going to glue opposite sides and stick them down at the same time. This just make sure the paper doesn't get twisted or rotated at all as you can fold each side in that can happen if you go around them in order. Make sure that you do opposite sides, glue them and stick them one after the other before moving on to the next pair of opposites. Once you've got both of your cover pages done, you're ready for your lining paper. This can be plain paper, it can be the same as your cover paper. It's really up to you. It's just a decorative panel that hides the gluing and the gaps that you've got from putting the cover paper on. Cut it slightly smaller than the page and then apply glue to the lining paper, not to the thing that you're sticking it to because it's the smaller piece of paper. If you drew on your lining paper and the marks are still visible. A quick top tip is to just apply glue to the side where the marks are, then you won't see it and you don't have to spend any time rubbing the marks off and pay particular attention when you're gluing to corners and edges. Once you've got all of those things stuck down, make sure you leave them under something heavy so that as the glue dries it glues flat and it doesn't bow it or curve it at all. You've got your covers ready for binding. The next thing we're going to do is prepare our book for sewing. You need to sandwich your book in place. You can do this between two big books. I've used clamps so that it's easier for you to see what I'm doing, but it's not the most easy way if you were doing it yourself. You might just want to stick it between two books. Then what you're going to do is you're going to mark two lines on the edge of your book. Both of them are about a third of the way in from their respective edges. As you're marking your line, I suggest you do it in pencil. Make sure that each of your bits of paper, each of your signatures is marked. Once you've marked all your pages and your covers, put down some thick card to protect your work surface. Even if you've got a cutting mat, you don't want to end up with pokey holes in it. Then what I do is I use whatever I'm going to make my holes with, whether it's a needle, a scalpel, or in my case, I've got this piercing tool. With my covers, I go about half a centimeter in from where that mark I made and I make the hole there. From my signatures, I'm going to open them up each in turn and poke holes through where those little marks are dotted on them. Make sure whatever you're using goes all the way through and that the hole is going to be big enough for whatever thread you're going to use to bind this together. I'm going to use normal sewing thread, so my holes don't need to be that big and I'm only using normal sewing needle for this. If I was using twin, I would probably use a thicker needle like a darning needle and make sure it's poked all the way through and top tip, if you're having trouble getting your needle through, wiggle it as you're pushing it through. Another top tip is try and keep your covers and each of your signatures in the same orientation and direction as they were when you drew the lines on. It'll mean that your holes are all aligned so that when you stitch it, it'll be neat and not a bit zigzaggy unless you were incredibly precise when you measured your lines to draw them in. Once you've got holes in all of your signatures and your covers, you are ready to bind your book. Now we've got our book ready. Join me in the next lesson where we will bind it together and add an enclosure. Don't forget to take progress picks along the way. 10. Construct a Coptic Bound Book: All right. Let's get this book bound. Spoiler alert, this can be a bit fiddly at first. I recommend pausing as often as you need to, rewinding and going over any bits that are confusing. Take your time with it. You'll get there in the end. Let's crack on. Thread your needle using whatever thread you want to use to bind this with. Just make sure that your needle is an appropriate size for the thread that you're using and that you've made your holes in your signatures and your cover an appropriate size for that needle. I'm going to use normal sewing thread. I've doubled it over and tied a knot in the end to secure it, and that's what I'm going to use to bind this particular coptic stitch book together. I pick up the bottom cover. This is going to be the back of my book. I take that up from the stack that I've got and also my last signature. Starting on the inside of that signature, I poke my needle from the inside through to the outside of the cover, and then I poke the needle through the cover so that the thread looks around and comes back in. I pull these tightly together, and then I create a knot by looping the thread around that stitch I've just made between the signature and the cover and I pull it tight. Once you're happy with that, then you take your needle and you poke it back in that same hole into the first set of signatures you're using. Thread up and then poke it out of the second hole in the signature, the one that you haven't used yet, and you're going to repeat the same process. The needle goes from the inside of the signature to the outside, and then it looks around the front and goes through that hole in the cover. You then pull it tight, L the needle through that stitch that you've just made to create a knot and you pull it nice and snug. Okay. And that's you. You've attached your cover to your first signature. The next set is pretty straightforward. You pick up your next signature from the bottom of the pile, poke your needle from the outside of the signature into the interior of that signature. Pull it tight, and then you poke it back out through the second hole on that signature. Take care to pull the thread tight. Once it's back out the other hole, you're going to create a knot with the bindings from the previous signatures. You poke it back, pull the thread tight, and then loop around the stitching that's right next to it from the previous signature. I find this a little bit fiddly. If you do two, take your time with it, you'll find a method that works for you. We attach it to the previous signature to hold the whole thing together. So each signature you add, you're going to knot it to the one before it. Then you get your next signature from the bottom of the pile. You take the needle from the outside, you poke it from the outside into the inside. Pulling it nice and tightly, and then you poke the needle back out the second hole. Once it's out, you knot this to the previous binding, just like we just did. Then you carry on in this way for every signature that you have. You knot it to the last one, you keep those bindings tight and snug and that'll give you a nice well bound book by the end of it. Okay. Okay. So you proceed in this way until you've got all your signatures bound and the only thing remaining is your top cover. What you do is you poke your needle from the inside of the cover to the outside. Okay. Take it over and around and back into your signature, and that will bind it into your book. You get the thread nice and tight, poke your needle out through the other hole in the signature. You love it through the inside of the top cover, pulling it tight, and then look around and make a double knot between the last bindings that you've made here. This will attach your top cover securely to your book. At this stage, you have a coptic bound book. You can leave it here alternatively, you can add decorative stitch details. To do that, you pull your thread from an upper top corner to the opposite lower corner and knot it securely there. Then you would take the thread to the upper corner there and then pull it across to the opposite lower corner, knotting it securely at each stage. When you're finished, you can use your excess thread as a wrap around, depending on what kind of thread you've used. You can also attach twine or ribbon into the stitching. But what I'm going to do is I'm going to make a belly band. It's using the same method that we use previously on the accordion fold book. Just as a quick reminder, I take a strip of paper that maybe about three times the width of the book. I wrap it around starting with the front of the book in the center of that strip. Mark where it needs to be glued and then glue the paper to make it stick together. Then I've got a lovely little belly band which will keep my coptic stitch book closed when I'm not using it. You can also decorate your belly band. I've used these dinky little letter stamps and gold ink. You can decorate it however you like, or leave it undecorated. Now you've got your very own coptic bound book. They take a bit more work, but I think they are stunning when they're finished. Don't forget to snap a picture and add it to your project. Then come and join me in the next lesson where I'll talk about where to go next with all of this. Okay. 11. Taking It Further: Hello again. In this lesson, I'm going to talk about options and possible uses for your tiny treasures. I draw and paint in mine, and there's a few different reasons to paint small. First off, for me, at least, I find it pleasurable and satisfying and honestly, that's reason enough for me. That said, when you paint small, it forces you to make choices about what you include and what you leave out and that helps you hone your skill with composition. As your images by necessity gets stripped back, which allows for a greater focus on what you do include and how you place those objects. Something else to bear in mind, Painting tiny can be less stressful than taking on a big piece of paper. Artists like Cecil Metzer and fellow top teacher Marin Noel Worm have spoken about painting tiny as a method they've used to get past their creative ruts, periods where they've struggled to paint. I believe that method can work for anyone, whether you're an expert like them or a beginner. You can also use these techniques to create different kind of story books. Here I've used glued together accordion fold to create my carrot thief book. I've shaped the top and created fun cutouts and to add interest to the story. Okay. Okay. But you don't have to paint in your books. You could use them as cute tiny scrapbooks or mini journals. You could use them as props in a doll house or maybe even make a whole bunch of them and give them as gifts or wedding favors. The possibilities are endless and the only limit is your imagination. I've created a pinterest board dedicated to miniature books, which you can also look at for extra inspiration. The link is in the class description below. I'm sure you'll come up with really interesting ways to use your books. When you do, please come back and let me know. I'd love to see them. Okay. And now we're just about finished. Come join me in the last lesson for some final thoughts. 12. Final Thoughts: Hello, book find are you. Well done on making it to the end. Thank you for joining me as we learned how to make different kinds of miniature books. We started with the accordion fold method, then looked at using glue to create perfect bound books before moving on to simple and coptic son books. Along the way, we looked at how to create different kinds of covers, how to add bookmarks, and wraparound enclosures, including the adorably named Belly bands. What I would really like for you to take away from this class is how accessible and delightful making books book binding can be. There is simple joy in creating Tini books and accessorizing them in whatever way takes your fancy. I hope that you've experienced that. If you feel like sharing the baby books you've made, I'd love to see them. You can post them in the class projects gallery, and if you'd like to stop by there and leave a kind word for other people's books, that would be really nice. If you enjoy sharing things to Instagram, feel free to tag me there. I'd love to see what you create. If you want to find out when I release another class, you can follow me here. There should be a little green follow button up there. If you click on my name, that'll take you to my profile, which has my other classes on it as well as links to my website where you can see more of my work. If you're interested in creating abstract patterns to use for your covers, I suggest you give my mindful watercolors class a try. If you could leave this class a review, it would be super helpful. It can flag to potential students what kind of a class this is and if it's the thing that they might be interested in too. Thank you again for joining me to learn how to make tiny books. I hope you've enjoyed this time and I'll see you in one of my other classes soon.