June 26, 2015 - Week 4, Cover and final book, Version 1

 Hello Everyone,

A bit behind schedule this week.  It turned out that I had several typos in my story that I had printed out.  And then I found out I had the order of the pages mixed up.  And then I decided to change the image on the back to one of my own.  So lots to do, in addition to making the covers and glueing the signatures in.

Without further delay though, here is the process I used to make the covers.

As I hopefully said in previous posts, I will do 2 different versions of this book.  This one is the smaller paper size, but has both front and back images, so the cover is two pieces without a spine.  This will allow the book to open fully.

To make these covers, I took 2 pieces of 2 7/8" x 2 1/4" mat board (you can use Davy board too, I just have a lot of mat board scraps), 2 pieces of 4" x 3 1/2" decorative paper and PVA glue.

I started by gluing the one of the mat board pieces into the middle of each decorative paper piece.  After that is set, I needed to cut each corner diagonally.

The measurement from the corner to the diagonal cut should be about 3/16ths.  My mat board was 1/16th in depth.  So I was able to make a template out of 3 pieces of mat board that I glued together.

The template makes it much easier to be consistent with the corners.

After all the corners are cut, I then glued one side down, making sure I folded the paper on the side of the mat board.

Hopefully that is clear in the above photo.  That little step ensures that the corner comes out nice and clean when you glue the next side down.  You will want to do this to all the corner edges.

After all the sides are glued.  I create the second cover the same way.  Then I let both covers dry completely under heavy weights for about 2 days.

Next it was time to glue the signature in.  The best way is to just take your time and make sure you center the first and last page.  When I glue covers on accordion books I always work from the fold forward.  Aligning and gluing the fold side of the paper first and the unattached side for last.

That seems to work best for me.

And that was it.

Here's the finished book:

completely folded

part open (standing up)

part open (laid down)

fully opened story side

fully opened picture side (the cover pieces can be seen on the far right)

It would have been nice, I guess, if my cover would have match the picture so that it could all flow together,  but I'll keep that in mind for the next time.

Next week, I will be finishing the second version of this book by creating a cover with spine.  I will also be introducing next month's book.

Till then,

Happy Book Binding!

Sheila