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! :)

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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 :).

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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 :)

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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 ;).

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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. :)

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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 :).

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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. ;)

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This is my first creation for this year....and I'm super excited about it firstly because this is my first order of hand-bound book and it's from a customer all the way from USA ;). Secondly it's because it's my first try at Kettle Stitch binding. I didn't know how to do it at first so I experimented and to my surprise it worked! I couldn't find a tutorial online for this, so I just observed a lot of photos of Kettle stitch hand-bound books by other book binders via online and tried to figure out how the bow pattern or some call it the butterfly pattern is formed.

Perhaps if there are book binders out there who are experts on this Kettle Stitch binding can correct me if they see there's something wrong with the way I bind the book. But so far, I don't have problems with the book at all....it seems to be able to open up pretty well and are bound together nicely too. However I do appreciate constructive comments and criticism as I'm still a beginner in book binding :).

At first my customer ordered this -> Japanese hand-bound book from me but I had to make a decision to change the method of binding the book because of the type of paper used for making the book is a bit too thick for Japanese binding. She wanted a book for sketching and drawing so I used an acid free paper that is pretty heavy, about 165gsm for the pages. There's only 50 ++ pages for this book. Another reason why I changed the binding method is because the Kettle Stitch binding is perfect for people who want to use the book for sketching and drawing....coz the book can be opened flat like the photo you see above unlike the Japanese binding which is a bit difficult to do so especially if the paper is a heavy one or thick.

I made it very simple for her since that is the way she likes it especially since the pattern paper itself is already very pretty. It's the same Japanese pattern paper that I got from WholePort. I love it a lot too. :). The bookmark for the book is crocheted and beaded to suit the book. I also love the string or thread used for sewing/binding the book with. It's so easy to use and love the shiny effect of the material.

I am pretty happy with this new love....book binding I mean hehehehe....although I'm still learning, I do appreciate the support I'm getting from my customers, readers and followers. You guys are the best! I get motivated to try something new not only because I believe I can....but also because you believe in me too! And for that I thank you from the bottom of my heart ;).

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My Mom requested me to make a special birthday card for her friend who will be celebrating her birthday today. But I decided not to make her a card, I made her a Japanese hand-bound book instead! hehe! Since I'm really into it right now, so I thought it would be nice to make one for her since I know how much she appreciates craft work so much.

I used another one of the Japanese pattern paper that I got from Wholeport.  I love the colours and the design of the paper a lot. I didn't want to keep the cover empty, so I decorated it with a simple quilling flower design on it with a die-cut pattern design on the background. I like the colour of the flower because it's a combination of two different colours, which is red and maroon.

I used to love making beaded bookmarks a lot.....I got so many beads in my collection, so I'm glad I can use them when making this hand-bound book. It's nice to get to do it again even though it's just a simple one for this book compared to the more complicated ones I've done before.

I'm so glad my my Mom's friend loves the book so much. She already has plans on what to use it for. And I'm so happy to know that it's for something good. Alhamdulillah. I managed to make one more person very happy today. ;)

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Tadaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!! My first ever handmade book! I have always wanted to make one except that I didn't know how to do it. But after doing some research about it online, I found some tutorials that was easy for me to follow and understand. I gotta say thanks to all those teachers I found on Youtube and Pinterest that shared their tutorials on making handmade books. Without them, I wouldn't have been able to make this book on my own. 

There are so many different types of handmade books for me to try out but since I'm a beginner, I wanted to try out something simple. Since I didn't have the proper tools and materials to make a handmade book, I decided to try making the Japanese hand-bound book because it's a lot easier than the rest and I could use my ribbons to bind the papers together. I have tons of ribbons available so this type of book is the best for me to try out for now. I didn't even have a proper board to use to make the cover for the book. I had only a mounting board available so I just used that and wrapped it with a wrapping paper I got from Wholeport. I distress the cover with a sweet coloured distress ink at all four corners and decorated it with some quilled shapes of flowers and leaves. Very simple. 

I was just too excited to get it done, I didn't bother to make it too fancy. I just wanted to get it done! LOL! It's a great feeling once you know how to do it and seeing it done for the first time. It's an indescribable feeling. I'm so happy I managed to do this before the year ends. It's one of the things I wanted to do this year and I did it! Yay!!!

Not sure if I will have the time to make another one, because I have a very busy schedule till end of this year.....but I gotta say that it is very interesting and fun to make a handmade book and I never knew that it would be something that we can all do ourselves at home. It's really nice to have a pretty handmade book for us to give as gifts to loved ones or for us to use ourselves. For those who have never tried it before, do give it a try! It's so worth it!!! ;)

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