A little about bookbinding

I love old crafts. I mean really old crafts, hundreds of years old. Bookbinding is one such crafts. Back during the dark ages, 1500 or so years ago, Benedictine monks were hand writing and painting beautiful bibles and other books, binding them in leather and studded with precious stones. These were works of art, literally priceless. Throughout the intervening centuries, books remained incredibly valuable, the preserve of wealthy monasteries, kings and noblemen. Then during the 1400s, Johannes Gutenberg revolutionised books with the invention of the printing press. Suddenly books were more affordable, but they still cost maybe a month's wages for the average man, and things stayed this way until the 19th century.

Because books were so valuable, they were made to last, with quality components and skilled craftsmanship. I once took a course at the local university near me, and got to look at and handle some tomes from the rare book collection. I held a book that was a thousand years old, and I'm sure with proper care it would last another thousand. Books today get battered and thrown out after only a few years at most.

Bookbinding was certainly a skilled craft, with young men apprenticing for many years to become a master bookbinder. They usually worked together with a printers, for both skills were needed to make a book. A couple of years ago I went to a traditional bookbinders in the restored colonial town of Williamsburg in Virginia, USA (an amazing place, lots of traditional crafts and a tonne of great living history, worth a blog post of its own sometime). It inspired me to want to try bookbinding myself.

So how is a book made? Well pages are grouped into signatures, folded using a bone folder and then stitched together on a sewing frame. Endpapers and then glued on and covers are then sewed and glued on to the book, and the book is pressed together in a bookbinding press. It's a little more involved than that, and the book needs to spend a day in the press at a couple of stages of assembly so it is a time consuming process. The covers, often made of leather are then decorated, often either with 'blind tooling' or 'gold tooling'. I am lucky enough to have a father in law who is exceptionally good at woodcraft, and he made all the tools I needed. I have had a go at proper bookbinding with reasonable results, but not yet anything good enough to sell or give to someone as a present.

I've also had a go at a quicker, slightly easier bookbinding method, still hand stitched, but without the need of the sewing frame or the press. It's called coptic stitching, and I'll post a guide to it in the next few days.

Book review: 'One Hour Craft' by Maria Binns

There are hundreds of great craft books out there, the problem is finding them. Crime books for instance are easy - you go to a decent bookshop and there's a great selection, all the major authors and many of the not so major authors too - It'd take you years to work your way through them, and then there'd be a new lot to get into. Not so with craft books (ok so any reasonable sized bookshop will have loads of sewing, knitting and card making books, but I'm talking about 'other' crafts). My home town is fortunate to have two Waterstones stores, one of which does always have a handful of good craft books. A few months later though they'll have a completely different set of craft books. Out with the old, in with the new. Over the years, we've bought quite a few good craft books, so thought I should share a review every now and then.

'One Hour Craft' is a general crafting book, with about 50 craft projects for you to do in. There's a wide variety, with sections for food crafts, sewing, jewellery making, making things with clay and so on. There's step by step instructions and lots of colour photos, average of a couple of pages per project so it doesn't go into a lot of detail. What it doesn't do is give detailed guidance on techniques, it doesn't teach you how to sew, cook or even much about making jewellery (the jewellery designs, like most of the projects in the book, are quite simple). The couple of soap making projects seem cheating a bit ('ready to pour soap'), but it does tell you how to make soap.

Best makes: Felted cushion, Etched Bird Mirror, Avocado Face Mask

Most pointless: Abstract Miniature Painting

For most pointless, a close run second was a polymer clay bottle top. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are lots of people doing great bottle tops with polymer clay, but the one in this book was literally several different colour lumps of polymer clay plonked on a bottle stopper!

Conclusion: I'd say this is good for someone that is only just getting into crafts, or wants some ideas for quick makes. If you are an experienced crafter, or are after some good 'how to' tutorials to learn a new craft, this isn't the book for you.

How much: Retail price is £14.99, but currently on available on Amazon.co.uk for £10.49.

Book Thong Making

Take your piece of cord and thread it through the metal loop on the charm (if not using charms, use beads and follow the instructions to the other end below). Tie both ends of the cord and repeat to make a knot, then once more to make a double knot and tie as tightly as possible.

Thread on additional beads for 1-2cm, then make a single knot tightly on top to secure all beads tightly. Measure amount of cord to fit outside of a book (hardback novel should fit almost all books) then make a single knot at top of length + 1cm. Thread on more beads with a large bead last. If the large bead hole is so big that when you tie a double knot it slips off then put a seed or tiny bead at the very end and do the double knot tightly. If you struggle, try, try again- it takes practice. Hemp is harder to work with than linen cord, so use if you can.

Finally, paint clear nail varnish on all of the knots to stop them from loosening. You can use for a while without but they will loosen eventually. Voila! Enjoy!

Kate

Monopoly Notebook

Here is one of my board game notebooks, this one from an old Monopoly board, which is surely familiar to most people if not everyone! I make notebooks out of all sorts of old board games, whatever I can make my hands on.

They have been popular so far, they're quite eye catching and there's a bit of the nostalgia factor with people remembering happy days playing board games with family or friends. Many of the boards have some small marks or knocks on them, but I think that is part of their charm - it shows they have been played and enjoyed. It is a shame they can't tell their own story, of how many different hands it has passed though, what arguments over who landed on whose property and so on. You can imagine though!

Where possible I source board games that are incomplete or battered, sometimes the boards are in pieces which is fine with me. If it's come to an end of its useful life as a game then I can give part of it a new lease of life as a notebook. Any spare bits and pieces I exchange with someone on ebay selling board game spares, so nothing goes to waste. See Kate's Folksy shop though for some book thongs made from old monopoly playing pieces!

Recently I've noticed on the high street some 'mock' upcycled notebooks, for instance notebooks of 'old' ladybird books, but newly manufactured rather than upcycled. To me these just aren't the same. There are so many old ladybirds books gathering dust in charity shops or falling apart and being thrown on skips that wasting materials on making new notebooks in factories in China just isn't the same. I'll be putting up some of my own properly upcycled ladybird books soon.

Dear All,

Kate here. I love all kinds of crafts from upcycling magazines to jewellery, bookthongs etc. I'll be posting on making your own book thong very soon, but here is a picture of one for starters.

You will need linen or hemp cord which you can buy on ebay. 0.5mm is better than 1mm, but if so long as it fits through your chosen beads that's fine. You'll also need a selection of beads, medium size with one or two large ones, plus a charm (you can substitute a charm for a large bead if you prefer). I have seen perfect good charms in The Works. In fact, they have a very cool one in the shape of a guitar at the moment! You'll need a tiny amount of clear nail varnish to ensure it doesn't come apart. If you don't use this then it may come apart in the future.

Anyway, gather your bits and bobs together and we'll make a book thong soon.

Welcome to the crafting barn

Welcome to the Crafting Barn. Here in the barn we're passionate about great handmade products, making things, crafting beautiful, eye catching, fun things. There's two of us here in the crafting barn. I'm Steve, and I'm sure Kate will introduce herself soon.

I like doing loads of different things, but at the moment I am mostly making notebooks out of old materials - board games, maps, books, old boxes of tea bags and anything else that I can find. This is 'upcycling', reusing old things for a different purpose after their previous life was coming to an end. At the weekend I trawl round charity shops and car boot sales looking for materials to use. I am selling my notebooks on Folksy and Etsy, both online marketplaces for selling hand crafted goods, and am working on my own website.

For those of you who don't know what folksy and etsy are, they are online marketplaces where many people from different places and backgrounds sell their handmade items to the public. If you've never been for a look, I recommend them to anyone. I've bought several presents from both folksy and etsy, and the occasional treat for myself too.

As well as talking about my own products, I hope to post about useful sites on the internet, interesting crafts, other people's handmade items, and anything else that comes to mind. More later.