Thursday 19th May

Over the past few weeks I have been thinking of a simple yet effective way of binding my book. I had made a book previously which used screws and bolts in order for it to stay together (as shown below)

However, this meant that there is no spine, and the book does not freely open as I would like it to, as it is slightly restricted. I knew I wanted my Snow White book to look like an old fashioned book, like so:

I started to look over the weeks of ways people have bound books they have made online, and after reading some of the instructions it seemed like quite a time consuming process for something that might not even be the right outcome.
I decided I would get a thick piece of card and cut two rectangles slightly larger than my A3 pages. I would cover them together in material leaving a tiny gap in between them so it would allow them to fold in half and become the cover for my book. Although it would not be a proper spine, and the whole book would be quite thin as a whole piece, it was the easiest way of having a conventional book. However when I came to cut the card I began to discuss it with my parents. I took all the pages I had created so far, and realised that actually they are very thick, as I was just thinking they were flat a3 pages, but with all the materials and extra pieces of paper I have used, it was actually quite thick. As I discussed it further we decided that it would be a good idea to try and create a spine for the book, so as I had measured out the covers, I just added a 5cm rectangle onto the width of it. I thought if it goes wrong the most I would have to do is cut it off and try to think of another way of using the back and front cover.
In the meantime, I cut the piece out as a whole, and in the centre I scored the 5cm rectangle on both sides. I then added lots of tape as I knew as soon as I tried to bend the scored edges it would break and come loose. After taping it the cover was taking shape quite well and I thought it would be successful. I took the dark green fabric I had bought over the weekend (which is cotton based I think, but has a lovely slight shine to it) and ironed out all the creases as I did not want this ruining the smooth finish I wanted. I decided to use double sided tape to stick the fabric to the cover, because using PVA or any type of glue would case it to crinkle as glue tends to do. I also thought glue would not hold the fabric as taught as I would like it.
After sticking the fabric down and making sure all corners were tucked in ready for the end papers to be placed in, I turned the cover over. It is much better than I ever expected it to be, and the fabric gives it such a nice finish. It's simple yet very effective and I don't think I could improve it if I tried.