This summer has been a busy one! I’m so excited to share my latest project with you. It’s taken me months to complete this mixed media book! But it has turned out so beautifully that I can’t help but share some of my excitement and talk about my process a bit.
Completely DIY Mixed Media Book
This book is a gift for my husband, so I wanted to make it more masculine. But, I also knew it was going to be a long process to finish it, and I had a tight deadline. Originally I was going to alter a book and I began creating pages, but I fell into the trap of trying to make each page unique and very different from the next. It was taking way too long and wasn’t coming together the way I hoped, so I scrapped the entire thing and started fresh.
This time I began with kraft colored cardstock. I decided I was going to use fabric and stitch on each page to create the backgrounds. I ripped white muslin into different sizes of squares and rectangles, and used Tim Holtz’ distress stain to color the fabric. Once I glued the fabric down, I ran each page through my sewing machine several times. I used several different types of stitches to add interest.
Does this book look cool enough for an online workshop? Click here for a one question survey that will help me as I develop my online courses. I need your help to make great content!
After the first round of stitching, each page got several strips of neutral colored washi tape. Of course, then I realized they also needed another round of stitching to secure the tape in place.
These steps sound pretty simple, but they took a looooong time to complete. Mostly because the bobbin threader on my sewing machine is broken and I had to thread my bobbins by hand every time they ran out of thread. Man, that got old fast, let me tell ya. But, the end result was worth the headache.
Once each of my pages was sewn the way I wanted, I glued two pages at a time together back to back. This created one page, with stitching on both sides. That’s when I began creating paper collages as beds for my notes (written on vellum). The notes were attached to the paper groups with more stitching.
Japanese Book Binding
Next up, the binding! I knew from the beginning I was going to use Japanese binding because of the single pages I was creating. I used this tutorial to create the covers, and then cut strips of chipboard to place between each page in the spine. This was important because each page needed extra space because of all the paper and embellishments I had added to each side. I used a glue stick to glue the pages and chipboard strips together, bound the covers to the pages with binder clips, then drilled holes for the thread. If you look closely in the video, you’ll see how crooked the holes are on the back. Drilling holes straight through 1 1/2 inches of paper is pretty tough. Oh well… it’s still holding together, and as long as you don’t look at the back, it looks perfect!
So, that’s my book! My first one completely finished and created by me, cover to cover. Yay!
I would like to see the binding process, including punching, especially the threading, and finishing off.
Thanks
Leah, I added a link to the youtube tutorial that I used to create the binding. I’m sorry that I didn’t get my binding process on video, but the one I shared should help a lot.
Congratulations on your celebration! just beautiful…how difficult was the binding…I have yet to watch tutorial.
It was actually pretty easy, though I had to drill the holes, and I haven’t learned the trick to making them straight. So, the holes in the back are very crooked. But at least the front looks good!