Making Books......

Now And Then......

I Know I am not alone, Dear Readers in my Love of Books, both RL sized and Miniature. It has been one of the constants in my miniature buildings that there would need to be books, shelves of books, reading nooks, whole Libraries of books. I bought the Secret Christmas House kit because it had a Library.... I just had to have it! I have collected mini books made by miniaturists from around the Globe whose workmanship I admire immensely. I have been sent gifts of mini books from readers of this blog on more than one occasion! And I have dabbled in making my own mini books... trying out various methods offered by other bloggers.... using printed pages shared by other miniaturists. Sometimes the books are "readable".... sometimes they are covered blocks of wood never meant to be opened. I do not remember just how young I was when I made my first dollhouse book... but I still have it and I was probably about ten years old when I made it. I was thirteen when I took an art class that taught us how to properly bind a book... stitching together the quires and making the spine and covers in the traditional methods. In the above picture you can see a mini book I made a couple of years ago, just to test the traditional methods in mini scale. The pages I used were "antiqued" (ie tea stained) and don't lie flat.... and the cover material is a "faux leather" I wanted to try out....

But I don't think it looks very good in close-up shots..... 

it is supposed to look worn... but it actually looks too threadbare

 and you can see the cloth texture in places.

But I really wanted to see how the binding methods would work

 in projects this small...

Because if you stitch the pages together right 

and attach the "spline" correctly...

 to the cover and not to the back edges of the pages....

 then when the book is opened, 

the pages fan out without damaging the binding.....!

I did it incorrectly on a book I made in my teen years....

I had stitched the pages together correctly... 

but I had forgotten that you don't want to glue

 the spine to the back of the pages.... 

I think I was impatient and wanted to get the cover on....

so I could do the illuminating.....

This was made in 1974.... 

well before the era of color copiers... 

or black and white copiers for that matter!

 Hand painted and lettered.

 

Still incomplete... I admit!

I never found the "right" cloth for the cover....

So why am I showing you this, you might ask?

Well, a recent Reader's comment asked 

whether I planned to fill the shelves in 

the Hardwick Hall Library with individual books

 or "dummy rows" with a few real books?

And I have to confess, Dear Readers,

 that I had not decided the answer to that question!

My Bookbinder self wants to make all real illuminated books.....

 but my saner self knows that this is not the Library

 that should hold those books!

The main problem being access.... 

way back in the corner of this Dark attic... 

behind the spiral stairs and the Hearth...

And a lesser problem being the lifetime(s) it would take

 to make all those books!

But Millicent's question led me to think that 

I should at least test out some of the book-making techniques 

that might be appropriate for this project....

 to see if I could manage to get it done in a reasonable amount of time!

The simplest of these methods seemed to be the printed covers

 glued around a block of wood method...

 and I even had the materials on hand..... 

having intended for years to try this method!

I had printed out some copies of book covers

 that were shared by someone a long time ago... 

I have forgotten who!

But I had printed them on paper not card stock...

 before realizing my error! 

So that meant I would need to glue the paper to card stock

 before cutting the covers out....

And it was a bit tricky to match the thickness of the printed books

 to the balsa wood I had bought long ago.... 

lots of extra cutting involved to get the shapes right!

And the balsa wood needed to be painted gold on the edges that would be the "pages"....

And the edges and inside border of the covers needed to be painted as well.... 

Because if you don't paint them,

 the white edges will show and ruin the effect!

And eventually I had a whole row of books

 in "sets" that would maybe fill a single shelf!

But how to get them into the shelves.... 

way back in the dark corner of the Attic Library...

That was the Question!

I am always reluctant to glue things down.... 

I like to Play with them....

 the Room isn't ready yet... 

what if I need to change my mind about something....?

But what good will all these books be if they don't get into the shelves....

And what good will all these shelves be if they don't get filled with books...?

Then I remembered a technique 

that somebody showed on their blog a long time ago... 

so sorry that I don't remember who.....

Which was to attach the items to a strip of clear plastic....

Cut from a clear package cover.....

Using a tiny dot of Museum Wax on the bottom......

The row of books will hide the plastic strip.....

Like so!

Here you can see the bottom side.....

But they are easily movable... 

and even removable... 

without damaging the books!

So we have to test them on the shelves.....

I think it will work! 

This way I can re-arrange them as I see fit 

once more of them are made...

Which I started right away in a slightly larger size

 after realizing that the first batch end up being quite small.... 

only 1/2 inch tall!

I had printed out sheets of the larger size all those years ago... 

and even though the print quality was not very good... 

the pixels are too large at this size... 

I think they will work well enough 

for the dark back corners of the Library...

And I had printed them on card stock which was slightly easier to use...

but still needed the edges painted....

You can see the two sizes here for comparison.....

The thickness of the wood matters!

Another row attached to the plastic strip.....

And testing the fit in the shelves.....

Gosh it's dark in there.....!

What if we turn on the spotlights.......

Or try them on different shelves.....

Here you can see them on the other back corner shelves.

 

Well, Dear Readers, I am sure by now you have realized, 

that I have realized that I will be making a lot of books... 

and most of them will not be "real" books....

And they may or may not be firmly attached to the shelves.

But every Now and Then, 

there will Possibly be a book or two

 that are made from the Pages to the Spline

 in Complete mini bound book fashion....

Because I just Love making Bound Books!