I’ve been toying with the idea of posting some books on Etsy for a while now, but I never got around to it. There is actually a fair bit of work involved in photographing the items and writing up the descriptions and figuring out shipping charges and setting up Paypal with a bank account.

Lucky for me I’ve just become unemployed, and I now have time (for the time being) to do all this stuff. So, you can now visit the Bathtub Dreamer store at Etsy and purchase the Bunnies and Moiré photo album shown above, or one of my other photo albums or Coptic- or hard-bound journals, like this Spot Journal.

This hardcover photo album makes the perfect gift and is easier to make than you might think. It uses a purchased photo album block, so most of the hard work is done already. All you have to do is assemble the cover (the “case”) and glue the book block in place. With the wide selection of book cloth and decorative papers available, it’s easy to customize an album for any occasion.

Although this tutorial talks about photo albums, there are many types of pre-made book blocks available, including blank journals, trip diaries, date and address books, and even wine and baby journals. These instructions will work for any type of book block.

1. Tools and materials
2. Cutting the cover boards and spine piece
3. Cutting the book cloth and cover paper
4. Assembling the case
5. Casing in the book block

For more photo album pictures, visit my bookbinding stream on Flickr.

Previously, I explained how to cut the cover boards and spine piece, how to cut the decorative paper and book cloth, and how to assemble the case for a photo album.

In this section, I’ll explain how to case in the album block. This is the last step!

Rather than stopping to take pictures every few minutes while I was dealing with fast-drying glue and trying to hold the book in position at the same time, I decided to create a video tutorial.

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Previously, I explained how to measure and cut the cover boards and spine piece and how to measure and cut the decorative paper and book cloth for constructing the case.

In this section, you’ll learn how to assemble the case. Put down some waxed paper or scrap paper, because today we’re going to glue!

Keep a damp cloth close by when gluing, and change out your scrap paper or wax paper frequently. It’s very disappointing to discover that you’ve accidentally set your beautiful paper or book cloth in some leftover glue. Wipe your fingers quickly whenever you touch the glue. I like to rip off a dozen sheets of wax paper and stack them beside me before I start gluing. I fold over the glued part as I use each sheet, and grab a new sheet as I need it.

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Previously, I explained how to measure and cut the cover boards and spine piece for the case.

In this section, you’ll learn how to measure and cut the decorative paper and book cloth to cover the case. How much of your cover is book cloth and how much is decorative paper is a matter of personal preference. Common proportions are for the book cloth to take up 1/3, 1/5 or 1/8 of the cover board width. You’re going to need a little math for this.

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Previously, I talked about tools and materials you’ll need for making a cased-in photo album.

In this section, you’ll learn how to measure and cut the book board and spine piece. My sample book block is a 30-page, medium-sized album block from Hollander’s, but I’ll explain how to measure for any block size.

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In this section, I’ll cover some of the tools and materials required to make your own hard cover photo album.

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One of my coworkers, Jos, made one of my other coworkers (or actually, her bandmate) a steel device to help in measuring sound waves. It has a flat round base with a rocket-ship-shaped thing welded to it, the tip of which is really pointy and sharp. How pointy and sharp? Well, let’s just say that after playing with it for a bit the other day it’s a good thing I’m up to date on my tetanus shot.

On what would normally be a completely unrelated note, I finished a bunch of new photo albums last night (starting here on Flickr) and brought them in to work today to show to yet another coworker. And since Jos has a deep respect for handmade things (he’s building his own electric car) and he happened to ask whether I’d made any new books lately, I showed them to him, too.

When I first picked up the pointy sound-wave-measuring device, one of the first things that came to mind was that the base would make a good weight for bookbinding. It’s the right size, and heavy (being steel), and would be perfect for weighing down sections while I’m sewing. I bought two three-pound weights from Hollander’s a couple of months ago and those have worked out well, but I would like more, perhaps heavier, weights and between the cost of the actual weights and the added cost of shipping them I have held off getting any.

While Jos was looking at my books I asked where he’d gotten the steel for the sound-wave thingy, and what grew from that was a barter. He is going to make me a couple of steel weights to my specifications, with welded-on handles; in exchange, I will make him a custom photo album. I’m super excited about the idea. Bartering just seems so much cooler than selling.

I’ve felt like I’m in a Japanese-paper-covered-photo-album rut in bookbinding, so this weekend I broke out Keith Smith’s Volume I Non-Adhesive Binding:
Books Without Paste or Glue and armed myself with some handmade paper from Flax and tried something I haven’t done before.

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Creativity is not necessarily tied to prolificacy, and I can be prolific, if not creative. These are all from last weekend. The nice thing about bookbinding is it’s easy to get handsome results without a great deal of skill. Much as I hate to admit it, the only real skill involved when using premade text blocks and beautiful papers is cutting a straight line and not getting glue all over everything.

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