Handmade Books

From fabric-covered albums of vacation photographs to bound collections of children's drawings, handmade books are one-of-a-kind keepsakes -- and one of the fastest-growing crafts today. Now, with this comprehensive and lavishly illustrated guide, anyone can master the fine art of bookmaking. Starting with the easiest types of books to make -- scrolls and bound single sheets -- Handmade Books presents fifteen step-by-step projects, culminating with instructions for beautiful multisignature hardcovers. Here are message scrolls and diaries, albums and address books, scrapbooks and chapbooks -- a treasury of unique craft projects for anyone who loves books.

Books with creative formats and artistic bindings have always been a specialty of small presses, but now the computer printer enables anyone to make distinctive-looking books. These three volumes are full of ideas and techniques for compiling and binding handmade books in many formats, including "memory books" and personalized scrapbooks. Blake (Making and Decorating Your Own Paper, Sterling, 1995) deals mainly with the mechanics of making covers and bindings. Graphic designer Kropper goes beyond this into hand-decorated pages, unusual formats, and traditional methods such as fore-edge painting. The Vanessa-Ann book is for makers of memory books and includes projects combining photographs and keepsakes with cutout mountings and simple bindings. All three books are good additions to public library collections, complementing one another rather than overlapping.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.