A Blank Book for Your Romance Novel
Imaginary World Book
Blank books give you a place to create and imagine a world of your own. In this easy to make book with sturdy binding and hard covers you can create a romance, an adventure, a collection of poems, or whatever your heart desires.
Materials you will need:
8x11 inch copier paper, writing and drawing materials, paper clips, awl, sewing needle, about 4 ft. of dental floss, scissors, 2 pieces of 6x9 inch heavy weight cardboard, 2 sheets of heavy weight decorative paper or paper that you can decorate, good quality paper glue, glue brush, and duct tape.
How to:
1) Decide how many pages you story or imagination needs for this volume.
2) You can make a dummy book, in small scale to plan the distribution of text.
3) Take your 8x11 copier paper and fold each sheet in half, slipping one sheet inside the other to make a signature. Write and illustrate your book before you continue.
4) Open the illustrated book to the center fold. Cut and fold the heavy weight decorative paper around the signature to create a soft cover which you will eventually glue onto the hard cover so let the decorative side face in toward the copier paper.
5) Paper clip all the pages of the open signature together so they don’t move. Use the awl to punch five holes about an inch apart in the crease of the signature.
6) Thread the needle with dental floss but do not tie a knot at the end.
7) Starting from the outside center hole, insert the needle and floss and in a figure 8 pattern sew, doubling back on previous stitches so that you wind up securing the length of the book and finishing with the two tails of thread in the outside center.
8) Tie and clip the tails of floss leaving a ¼ inch end on either side.
9) Cut the heavy cardboard so that it is slightly larger than the signature on the three unfolded sides.
10) Place the cardboard on heavy decorative paper and trace. Leave an extra ½ inch around all four sides and clip the corners to create glue tabs that will wrap around the cover. Do this for both front and back covers.
11) Brush glue on the paper and place the cardboard. Smooth out any bubbles or wrinkles. Fold the tabs around and glue.
12) Place a piece of duct tape in the color of your choice sticky side up on the table. Carefully place the two covers side by side on the center of the tape with the glue folds face up. Fold the ends of the duct tape around the cover face up.
13) Use some scrap paper to protect the first sheet of your signature as you will glue the decorative soft cover to the hard cover. Brush glue on the decorative paper and place on the hard cover pressing out air bubbles from the center of the page toward the edges. Make sure that it is glued down all the way into the creases.
14) Repeat on the other cover.
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