The Chronicles of Bookbinding By: stacia svedi

This last weekend was a really relaxing one for me. It was so nice. I did everything I wanted to do. Bookbinding.

That's right I did some bookbinding, which I haven't done for a few months, so it was nice to get back into it a bit. I realized that my stock of glue, muslin, sharp razor blades, and binders board is getting quite low. I'm gonna have to make a trip to an art store to re-stock! :) And I need to get my stuff organized a little better. I haven't really done anything since moving to my new place, but I have a table set up in my room and a huge paper cutter (thanks mom!) So I really haven't had any excuse except that it's kind of a squished corner and it can be a hassle getting everything organized every time I want to do anything. But, c'est la vie.

Anyway, I finally got around to fixing a book for my brother. He has this huge Chronicles of Narnia book, you know the one that has all the stories combined into one book. Well, he's had this for years! And lets just say it's been "well loved." The spine was completely gone, and the top cover was separated from the book. SO I worked some of my amazing magic and Voila! It's as good as new!

I added a new spine, and covered it with book cloth, which is much sturdier than paper. I covered the corners as well since they were getting worn down.

Here you can see the spine, and end-bands which I replaced so they match the spine, and I even replace his book ribbon, the one that was there was all scraggly and worn. Yeah, I'd have to say it looks pretty good. :)

Things proved to be a little tricky for replacing the inside paper, and to be honest it got a few bubbles in it, and I got glue on the paper, but I think it still looks better than before, and besides that, this paper is pretty snazzy! I hope he'll appreciate his newly renovated Chronicles of Narnia! Please don't read while laying in bed Scott, that is a dang heavy text! The poor spine won't stand a chance!




Here's my next project! I snagged this book from my sisters room, I'd seen it there for a while, all taped up and I just thought, this is a shame! The book itself has such an awesome cover! Please don't put tape on your books! Come on people! The tape is all yellowed and brittle, and I just had to do some book surgery!

 Even the inside is all taped up, as you can see this came from some library, Shaina did you just never return your library book? ;)

I love the illustration on this, it is just beautiful and even with the faded colors it still looks so neat. I'm still working on getting the tape off, it might take some time, and I think I'm going to have to try moistening the tape, to get it to come off easier.

Here I've removed the cover from the text-block, and I'm working on getting the tape off.

Look at the inside illustrations too, they are just adorable. I simply love it. I might have to keep this book when I'm done with it. OR it could be really cute made into a journa. I would use the cover and create a coptic bound book, where every other section of the text is blank pages. Now I know that doesn't make much sense if you don't know much about bookbinding, but... it would be awesome. I will probably just try to restore this book as best as possible, unfortunately some of the paper on the inside is really stuck to this tape, but i will do my best, and give an update when I'm done with the book!