A wonderful gift for an anniversary or a wedding will be a self-made book, telling about the life and adventures of the hero of the day, or newlyweds - as an album for photographs. Parents of a child will also like a beautifully designed dense book, because you can collect photos of all stages of a baby’s life in it or use it as a diary, recording periods of development of a baby.
For a child, a fabric book will be a wonderful and useful gift, in which on each separate page there will be a specific task that develops logical thinking, motor skills of hands and fingers, teaching colors and shapes.
In this article, we will look at how to make a book with your own hands out of paper and other materials. Such a product is suitable for both adults and children. Let's start with a children's educational book.
Home-made children's book-game
All products made for young children should be safe, without sharp corners, so as not to harm the baby. Therefore, the best option for a children's game book is fabric. For the cover, you can take thick chintz or satin of bright colors, and for the inner pages we will use felt sheets. This is easy to use material. It can be glued, stitched, cut into a pattern. The edges of such material do not crumble and do not require additional processing. Sheets of felt are sold in a large assortment, so that you can easily select the necessary colors.
How to make a book with your own hands so that it is durable and safe? For flashing pages using eyelets of small diameter (reinforced through loops of metal) and a beautiful twine. First, the cover is sewn - a simple rectangle with the dimensions of the future book, in the middle of which 3 pairs of holes for inserting the eyelets are pierced. You can make a velcro or button so that the child closes the book after the game.
Page Design
Before you make a book with your own hands for children, you need to think about what tasks will be placed there. On the first you can place a tree with apples of different colors, which will be fastened with buttons of the same color. The child must remove and then properly fasten the fruit. In this case, the motor skills of the fingers, the ability to distinguish colors.
On the other, you can sew a sneaker with laces, on the third - a pyramid, where each ring will be fastened with Velcro. Each task is made of bright felt, it will be interesting for the child to complete them in such a fun way. On each page, grommets are also nailed to the edge, and after folding them together with the cover, twine is stretched through all the holes. It is tied on a bow over the whole product. Such interesting books made by oneself (photos can be seen in the article) will help the baby to master many skills and knowledge.
Page Staple Order
Now consider how to make a do-it-yourself book for adults. You need to prepare white paper in A4 format. The required number of sheets is distributed in equal parts, each of which is bent in half. On the central fold with an awl, two holes in the upper half and the same from the bottom need to be perforated. The distance between them is 4-5 cm. In each bundle, these holes should be at the same distance so that shear does not occur when stapling. To do this, use the pencil and ruler to make the necessary measurements.
For flashing, you need to take a strong nylon thread, insert it into a gypsy needle and perform movements according to the scheme in the photo in the article. After stitching all the packs, you need to put them under the press. Then you need to punch holes through the entire bundle at the very edge of the end part and sew them tightly together.
Gluing packs together
After several packs of stapled A4 paper lay under the press for at least a couple of hours, you can continue to work. You will need several strips of cotton fabric, which are carefully smeared with glue and glued to the end of the future book in width with going to the first and last pages of the book. Then the whole structure is sent further under the press until the glue dries.
Many people use strong paper masking tape, as in the photo above. If you are in a hurry, you can use this method, but it’s best not to rush and apply the old tried and tested method with a cloth and glue. Thick PVA glue is best.
After drying, a long and wide piece of fabric is cut, smeared with glue and attached along the length of the side of the stack of stapled paper. After complete drying, you can begin to design the cover.
Making the cover
You already know how to make a book out of paper with your own hands, now we will begin work on making a thick cover. You can use different materials. This can be corrugated cardboard, a simple multilayer cardboard, fabric or artificial leather. The book is laid out in the center of the selected material and the length of the cover is measured. To do this, add the width of the first page, end part and last page. Do not forget to leave 3-4 cm on the hem on each side.
Then, a colorful top cover is cut to fit the cardboard. This is done with a margin to bend the edges. Now you know how to make a beautiful book with your own hands. It remains only to stick the first and last pages to the cover.
How to make a book out of cardboard with your own hands?
If the sheets in the homemade book are pretty tight, then you can use a different technique for stapling pages. Using this method, the product will hold tight and dense sheets will not be able to tear the product with frequent use.
As you can see in the photo above, bundles of bent cardboard are stitched immediately through the same dense cover that is prepared first. Use a kapron thread folded in half so that the seams are also strong. Threads are threaded into the numerous openings on the central fold of the sheets and cover. To ensure that they coincide and there are no incidents during stitching, first carefully measure the distance for punching with an awl of holes. Everything is sewn with a “needle back” stitch, which implies the return of the thread in one hole two times.
Corner bookmarks
Now let's look at how to make a bookmark for a book with our own hands. Let's start with the simplest and most fun option - funny faces of animals from folded colored paper in the origami way.
Acting according to the detailed step-by-step scheme, it is possible to lay down the basis of a triangular bookmark. You can decorate the front of the product with applique. This can be the face of a cat, squirrel, dog, figurines of any character from your favorite cartoon or fairy tale.
You can not only paste over the triangular corner itself, but also make protruding parts from thick double-sided paper - ears, teeth, wings, a hat and any other decorative element. A bookmark is placed on the corner of several pages. It is advisable not to rearrange a book with such a bookmark from place to place, since when moving a triangular corner can fly off from the edge of the leaves.
Such a bookmark is used if, after reading the book, it is left to lie closed on a shelf or table.
Rubber Bookmark
The next type of bookmark for books with the help of rubber band securely holds the desired page. Let's consider in more detail how to make it. You will need a round or flat elastic band, several sheets of felt necessary for the picture of flowers.
First you need to draw a project for future bookmarks, which can later be used as a template. Further from the felt cut out the necessary elements of the picture. Felt crafts are bright and soft to the touch. The material is convenient in that you can sew from it, as well as glue the details of the application.
After the conceived character figure is completed, an elastic band is sewn on its back side, the length of which is equal to the volume of the book. It should be tightly stretched, fit snugly to the surface of the book so that the bookmark does not dangle on the page.
The article described in detail how to make a book with your own hands for both children and adults, examples of easy bookmarking for books are shown. So get to work, you will surely succeed!