bookmaking

So now about book making,
There are two techniques I have been teaching. One is super self explanatory and works well for small children:

1) Gather cardboard boxes and cut into pieces that are slightly larger than either 1/6 or ¼ the size of an 8x12 piece of paper
2) Cut 3-4 sheets of 8x12 into 2 or three sections longwise (hotdog style) then fold in half (hamburger style) peforate with a big hole punch (perforadora) to make little booklets of pages. About 3-4 booklets is plenty
3) Perforate cardboard to match pages
4) cut out a piece of construction paper/plasticbag/fabric scrap about a a quarter inch larger than the cardboard. Glue together. (Have little scraps of cardboard on hand to make glue paddles. It helps the little ones spread the glue in a very thin sheet and keeps their hands cleaner)
5) Cut out the corners of the cover paper (you’ll see what I mean when you make your “muestra”) and glue down “las alas”. I like to cut the corners on a diagonal to leave them a little cleaner looking when they are glued down but this can be a little tough for people under the age of 10 who are too super excited about making a book to listen to instructions. If you have a small group it it nice to have an exacto knife on hand and cut the excess paper off the corner
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If you are working with fabric fold instead of cutting the edge as to keep it from fraying. Beware that paste glue changes the color or gets rid of the sheen of most anything that is not cotton and so hot glue is the best second option.

6) Cut out a sheet of paper the same size as one of your pages and glue to the inside of the exposed cardboard. The whole “pasta” should be covered at this point. If you were working with fabric earlier I recommend doing the inner part in paper. It is less labor intensive to finish the edges. Pinking shears are really fun to use if you can find them. Make sure you have your perforated holes marked on the front cover. Punch them through with a pen or a big nail when the inner part is covered.
7) Split one of the plastic ropes that people dry their laundry on. A thin rope can split into abot 5-6 smaller strong threads. Thread each booklet one at a time and tie. Have a ball decorating with whatever is around.
8) Fold the finished cardboard cover infront of the holes to enable the book to open

Note: I’ve found it really helpful to have all of the materials cut and perforated to avoid large SNAFUS

Note: This workshop worked really well for women put into the context of making photo albums. Instead of cardboard they used carton piedra. The only thing that changes is that you need to run an exacto knife LIGHTLY over the CP where you want the cover to bend to open the book and then cover the “pastas”


Technique #2

This takes some time but makes nice books. If you want them to look super nice use carton piedra if not boxes work just as well

1)Make your booklets but don’t perforate them. Go ahead and make a bunch

2) Get a large embroidery needle, thread and a broken candle. Thread the needle double strength and pass the thread through the wax to make it more resistant. The wax should stick to the thread more or less. If it is balling up and flaking off the thread it is no good. I used a typical vigil candle and it seemed to work. You can cheat and buy strong nylon thread but I like passing the thread through the wax… It feels really old school and my guess is that most every house in Guatemala has cheap thread and a candle so it would be simple to replicate if they want to make a book on their own.

3) Stitch each booklet together. Then stitch the booklets together at the spine. The outer page of the first and last booklet needs to be somewhat stronger than the other pages (Newsprint pages are the cheapest as it can be hard to find enough recycled pages to make one of these books) Poster or construction paper works well.

4) If you have it on hand use a little tape to tightly secure the pages on the outer spine. If not cut your 2 cardboard covers slightly larger than your pages. Cut your spine piece the same width as all of your pages when held tightly together

5) Lay out all the pieces on a piece of fabric, plastic or paper leaving ¼” between the spine and the covers

6) Cut the fabric about 1-1 ½ “ bigger than these laid out boards

7) Glue, flip over and smooth out the bumps with your forearm or a ruler

9) Cut the corners on a diagonal, crease along the edges of the boards and glue
-This is a good time to glue a little ribbon inside the spine to make a bookmark if you want

10) When this is really dry glue down the first and last (more sturdy) pages to the inside covers and smooth them down

Voila!

Rumor has it that you can make cool hardbound notebooks with nuts and bolts instead of sewn pages but I have never done it. If any of you venture to try let me know how it works out. In the mean time lets keep the gates of communication open and share what works with one another. Have fun!

Cheers

Brenda

PS
For the super shy children freaked out by a white face (pidgeons as Alayna called them) I have had some luck communicating via a stuffed animal. A purse sized teddy bear or dinosaur is a lot less scary than me to someone only three feet tall. In any event I like the idea of carrying candy in my pockets. I will buy some tomorrow!