Little pink and green notebooks

The first time I made mini notebooks was sometime last year. I thought I would make more after that but never really got to making any because was too busy diving into other projects. These little notebooks I made here was kinda made in a hurry because it was not something I planned to do. It's one of those spontaneous things I do sometimes for those I love.

These were for my cute little nieces. They dropped by yesterday and I had to make something for them before they went back to their hometown. I just couldn't let them leave empty handed. I have always wanted to give them something that I made myself. It gives me a lot more satisfaction than buying something from the store.

I'm so glad that they loved their gifts. Although it's just a small little gift, it's the thought that counts, some would say. They were really careful with the notebooks. Opening them up slowly and gently. They appreciate art very much and hopefully someday I'll get to teach them a thing or two about quilling. Then they can make art for others too. :)

Pink and blue flowers hand-bound book

Here's another one of the hand-bound books that I've made in November. When I made it I didn't have any plans on who I was giving it to or selling for that matter. I was just making it because I was so into making hand-bound books with beads. I just kept on making them non-stop. Plus because I needed to practice making them before I forget how to make them completely! Hahaha!

I really enjoyed making these books. The ones I've been making were made using quite a thin type of paper which is only 80gsm for the pages. I did try though making books using 120gsm paper and I love them! In fact, I think I love them more than the 80gsm type. Simply because I think they turned out looking better than the 80gsm ones. Plus it would be good for writing as well as sketching. But not for painting though. If it was for painting, then perhaps I need to use the watercolour type of paper for that purpose. 

Hand-bound books great as gifts. Functional too! I love giving people something that they can use. Maybe perhaps it's because I love getting gifts that I can use too. I mean, what's the point of having something pretty in the house and it just sits there without any purpose. I'm a practical person, and I love things that I can benefit from. I guess I was brought up that way. I should thank my Mom for that! :D

At last the book went to a very close friend whom I knew since I was primary school.....well....actually, she's a close friend of the family....she was the one who helped my Mom when my father passed away many many years ago....so she is quite dear to my heart. When her birthday came, I just had to give this book to her. She has never seen a book like this before. It really thrilled her to bits! She adored it very much. And that really made me very happy.

It doesn't take a lot to make people happy. Make the move and spread the love! :)

Colourful hearts hand-bound book

I love making notebooks that has colourful combination of colours like this one. But it's not always easy to get a wrapping paper or pattern papers with many colours like this. I love this combination of colours.  If I'm lucky I'll be able to get one at the stationery shop, if not, I will have to settle with whatever designs they have. I used to make a notebook with similar colours like this but the heart design on the cover were a lot smaller compared to this one. I really loved it but I can't seem to get the same one anymore. 

I enjoy making these notebooks but I prefer not to decorate anything on them. Just leave it as it is. Let the owner of the book decorate it anyway they like it. I just focus on sewing them together. Which by the way is not as easy as you think! It's a lot of work! hehehe!! Only those who have done it before know and understand what I'm talking about. But the experience of sewing it is really worth the while.

For this book I used a different type of beads. It's plastic but it kinda looks like crystal to me....hahaha....who am I trying to kid?? But really....it does, doesn't it? Well......from a far it does! I love using this type of beads for this kinda binding technique. I have many different types of colours for the beads too in my collection. So, I thought it would be nice to use them for this book binding project. At least they are used for many different craft project instead of just for making beaded bookmarks.

This book is going all the way to New Mexico, USA.....I hope it arrives in good condition. But most of all I hope the receiver will love it as much as I do :).

English roses hand-bound book

I started sewing books again.....at first I almost forgot how to begin....the mind gets rusty after a while. I sewed quite a few books and all of them I sewed with beads on both sides of the book. It's a new way for me to sew them nowadays. Loving the new technique right now. :)

I figured out that this new way will save me a lot of glue as well as I need not glue the covers onto the signatures of the book, instead, I just sew them together with the signatures. Some might not like it that way, but I really do love the idea at the moment and that's how I plan on making them right now until I find other more interesting ways to do so in future.

This is just one of the books I made with beads on them.......will blog more on the other books I've made soon. For this particular book, I used plastic pearl beads as decorations. They seem to suit the English style roses wrapping paper that I bought. 

I prefer to make these half A4 sized hand-bound notebooks instead of larger ones. I love to make them and give them away as gifts to loved ones too :)

Plain black sketch book

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I received some gorgeous black gold pearl shell wrapping papers from WholePort some time ago and was waiting for the right project to use them until one day I got an order from a customer who wanted to order a hand-bound book with a plain black covers. 

It suddenly hit me that I had this black gold pearl shell paper in my collection and it was perfect for this project because the gold shine on the paper really suits the colour of the thread that I was going to use for the book. Yes, coincidentally my customer wanted the thread to be gold in colour.  

I simply love the paper so much....it's quite thick....looks like leather but it's not.....it's just paper....really love it!

You can check out where to buy the the black wrapping paper for the covers at the link here : Black Gold Pearl Shell wrapping paper

This book I made does not have that many pages in it.....just about 50 pages of  acid free 165gsm drawing paper that would be suitable for sketching, colouring and etc. Which is exactly what my customer wanted. She adores it and so do I ;).

Checkered books for good friends

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I love this checkered pattern paper.....seriously I really do. The minute I saw it at the bookstore I knew I had to buy it and use it as a cover for my hand-bound books for men. I think the special thing about it is the silver dots along the lines....how it shines when it hits the light...so fancy :)

Both the books at the top of the post were made for 2 guys who are good friends of my sister. One I've never met but been hearing a lot from her for quite some time now.....the other one is a good of mine too whom I've known since way back in the 90s and is also my neighbour :).

To be honest I was in a little hurry to get the books done at the time coz I was so busy with other orders and living my life hehehhee....so much so that I didn't have much time to think about how to decorate it. The pattern paper itself already looks good to me because of the design.....I just didn't know how else to make it look nice! LOL! So to personalise it a bit, I decided to use the same method I used on my earlier hand-bound book design which was decorating it with the wooden ring I got from Wholeport and put their names inside it. For one of them I used a short form of his name and the other one, just his initials because he didn't have a short form for his name....hehe....I've always called him by his first name...so, having his initials there was the best thing I could think of at the time.

At first I wondered if I  should make single colour pages or multicoloured ones. It seems like doing single coloured ones would be too plain so I opted to make them a little fancy by choosing a few coloured papers that would match the cover of the book. And I really like the outcome of it. :) I'm glad that both of them liked the books that I made for them too. Alhamdulillah. :)

Hand-bound book for swap

Here's a close up detail of the hand-bound book I made for the craft gathering swap I attended in February. It's a small book....A6 in size and I did a French stitch binding for it. My favourite type of binding method at the moment ;).

I didn't have enough time to decorate much for the cover. So I just used a simple way of embellishing it which was to use a pattern paper that has a crowded design and glued a piece of ribbon,  a piece of die-cut scallop felt and some embellishments that I got from Wholeport.

You can get the embellishments from Wholeport at the weblinks below:

1. Flower resin

http://www.wholeport.com/item/3zt_25mm-cake-flower-resin-beads-cabochons-5pcs.html

2. Decorative Wooden Ring

http://www.wholeport.com/item/cjl_5pcs-60mm-decorative-pattern-hollow-out-wooden-ring.html

I love making small notebooks like this. It's so cute and I love making them as gifts or for swaps. Because the receiver can use it instead of just admiring it. It's functional so to speak :).

Making books books and more books

This is what I've been up to for the past few weeks....aside from preparing stocks for my quilling supplies. It's quite evident that I'm really hooked on book binding. It has completely taken over the card making activities! Yikes!!!

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I think this multicoloured paper notebook is my favourite so far coz it's so colourful! So bright and cheerful to look at too. It would be nice to make the pages colourful by choosing the colours that would match the same colours available on the book cover.

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All the books above are A5 sized books and have 200 pages each. I used 80gsm paper as they are easy to work with and suitable to use for making notebooks. I used to have problems in choosing the right type of thread for sewing the books but now I don't have that issue anymore. I love the threads I'm using now and it's very smooth and does not get entangled as much as the other types I've used before.

I also started collecting a lot of wrapping paper for the book covers. It can get a little carried away coz there's just so many nice ones to choose from. ;)

I've managed to sell some of the books and given away some as gifts too. It's been a real joy to do it. I've even tried to make smaller hand-bound books that are A6 size and that's really fun too. It's takes less time to get done and is super cute to see and hold. Will blog about that soon. ;)

My first French Stitch hand-bound book

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As you can see, I'm a little....just a little addicted to making hand-bound books lately ehehehehe :D. This time around I tried making the French Stitch hand-bound book. It may look a little complicated to make....but in reality, it's actually a lot easier than the Coptic Stitch! Seriously! And the best part of it all, I didn't even need to use a wax thread for it. The thread just slide easily in and out the signatures. Yay!

In the beginning I did have some problem doing the French Stitch because I couldn't find a tutorial on it on Youtube. The stitch is similar like a Long Stitch except that the difference is I only had to hook each thread from each signature together so that it looks like it's connected from the first signature to the last one. Very complicated to explain it here. I just did it based on observation from photos I found in Google Images and tried it out. I tried doing it 3 times and the third time's the charm! ;)

This book is actually made for my Mom....she requested me to make one for her friend's birthday. I didn't want to do the Japanese Stitch or the Coptic Stitch, since I preferred to use the French Stitch now. And that's how it came about. 

As usual, I tried to use whatever materials I had in my studio to create this hand-bound book. Since I'm still a beginner, I rather not spend too much buying new materials, instead I just improvised and make the best of it. Luckily for me, I have some stock from WholePort that are suitable for making hand-bound books. For example, the thread for sewing the signatures, the pattern paper for the book cover and the lace for embellishing the cover.

I used smaller sized ribbons since I didn't have larger ones that would match the cover of the book or the thread. It was kinda tricky to do it like this but I liked the challenge....it's nice to experiment once in a while with whatever I can find in my studio. I love the red thread that I used for sewing the signatures. I got this one from WholePort too......you can get it at the link HERE.

I gotta say I love this lace! I don't have a lot of it since I only got just a little sample of it from WholePort. I would have to get more of it in future. I love it coz I can add 1/8 inch ribbon to it. You can get it too at the link HERE.

It's been a while since I last made these paper roses. It was fun to do them again for this little project! ;). I think this is the 3rd time I'm using this pink polka dot pattern paper. It's simple and sweet. You can get it at the link HERE.  

I can't wait to make more hand-bound books using the French Stitch binding technique. Because with this technique, I can get a book that can open up just like the Coptic Stitch hand-bound book and yet so much easier to sew. Plus it doesn't involve any punching of holes either on the cover of the book! Ain't it great!?? It is to me!!! hahah! :D

My first Coptic Stitch hand-bound book!

I'm super excited today because I finally get to blog about my experience in making another type of hand-bound book. The technique used for making this hand-bound book is called the Coptic Stitch book binding technique. I was very skeptical about making it at first because it looks so difficult to do and requires some special thread for sewing the papers together. I didn't have any at first.

Luckily for me, I found out that WholePort has some really nice threads in their collection and I immediately requested for some from them for me to use in making my Coptic Stitch hand-bound books. Below are some of the threads I received from them and one of it I used for sewing this hand-bound book. It's not a wax thread but it's quite strong enough for sewing small hand-bound books. I waxed it with some candle to make sure that the thread won't get entangled when sewing. You get the same thread at the link here: Brown yarn.

I also used some of the brass charms that I received from WholePort to decorate the cover of the hand-bound book. I love them so much!!! They are so pretty!!! You can check out the brass charms products at the links below:

1. live your dream brass charms
2.  never never give up brass charms
3. believe in love brass charms

I only used wrapping paper from WholePort for the base of the cover. It's really nice, an old newspaper type of wrapping paper. You can check it at the link here: Old newspaper wrapper.

The wooden ring that I used to put my name on it is really something! I was wondering how to use it and suddenly thought of that idea. I love the wooden alphabets too! I wish I have more of that. You can check it out at the link here: Wooden ring and Wooden alphabets.

If you ask me, I would have to say that I prefer this type of book compared to the Japanese hand-bound book because, it is easy to open and use this book because when opened, it opens up completely like the photo I showed above. So it's very suitable for those who loves to sketch or even for writing. Plus another good thing about it is that I can add a lot of pages in the book and it won't be a problem to open it up at all. That's the beauty about the Coptic Stitch book binding technique. :)

Hope to make more of this in future!!! ;)