Previously, I constantly changed notebooks. I was tired of the design, the sizes turned out to be inconvenient, and I wanted to start from scratch on the half-filled notebooks. On the Internet I came across a traveler's notebook and realized that this was my ideal notebook. In this article I will tell you how the Japanese notebook differs from others and how to make it yourself.
How to make a voluminous book with your own hands?
So, let's get started.
First, we need to print the book itself. Through the Word program, we set the page orientation to portrait, set the margins (top margin - 1.5 cm, bottom margin - 1 cm, inner margins - 2.5 cm, outer margins - 1.5 cm). We put down the page numbers and insert the text we need. Page size - A5. We print.
Fold the printed sheets into brochures (maximum 6 sheets), stitch them or staple them so that the sheets are well secured to each other.
How to connect the pages of a book? We fold our brochures in order, coat them one by one with glue and glue them together.
The finished glued sheets must be placed under a press. The heavier the better. Usually a board and dumbbells are used for this. The edge (end) of our book, about 5 millimeters, must be left free. We will still need it.
We make six small cuts on the end (you can use a regular knife). We make the cuts at the same distance and at such a depth that the inner sheets are affected, otherwise we will not be able to fasten them well. Lubricate the end with glue.
Next, you need to glue the fabric to the end. The edges of the fabric should protrude 4-5 centimeters. Let it dry well.
Sew the end to the fabric with threads. Having stitched, we go through the holes that we “sawed”.
Again coat the end with glue. Make a layer thick enough so that the threads are not visible.
Making a fake book “Old Book”
I always have a book in my handbag, in case the real world stops being interesting.
So I decided to transfer my love of reading to puppeteering! A book angel was about to be born and he had to stand on old books! But I couldn’t raise my hand to spoil them, even if it was a repair manual for a ZIL engine... It was decided to make deceptions! Which, in fact, is what I want to share with you. Such “books” can be used for photo shoots, because not every home has second-hand, old copies. And if you cut out the middle, you get a secret storage for your secrets!
So let's get started!
We will need very simple and accessible materials:
- A4 office paper, for pages;
- thick cardboard and colored paper for the cover;
- thin cardboard and fabric for the spine;
- ribbons/straps for bookmarks;
- scissors, stationery knife, metal line, glue (PVA and Moment Crystal, that goes without saying);
- brushes and paints.
First, let's decide on the size. I will have 2 books at once, one 1/4 A4 sheet, the other a little smaller. I cut the sheets in half, take 3 pieces each, fold them and run them along the fold with scissors, so I get these mini blocks.
I buy used paper. We will help save + ecology. All this printed disgrace will not be visible.
We select the desired thickness of our book.
And put it under pressure, I left it overnight. This is a good, heavy press in the form of a pan of water, so that the blocks become even and do not bulge.
Now let's outline the approximate border along which we will glue. So, we will trim the edges so that the book becomes smooth and neat, about 0.5 cm will be cut off on each side. And the leaves on the cuts should not be glued so that everything looks natural! This means we retreat approximately 1-1.5 cm from each edge, draw (you can mentally) a border and begin...
This is my least favorite part! Each page needs to be coated with glue and glued together! It’s boring, monotonous... but, “The Party said, “We must!” The Komsomol answered - “Yes!”
It is more convenient to glue 5-7 mini blocks together, and then assemble them into a book of the required thickness. Don’t be overzealous with glue, PVA glues paper perfectly even in small amounts! Have you collected it? Great! Place under a press (remember a saucepan with water) to dry!
One more moment! If you are planning a bookmark, leave the place where you will place it unglued; I conveniently forgot about this and had to tear the block apart.
When our block has dried thoroughly, we take a metal ruler, a stationery knife and cut off the edges. We press the ruler tightly, cut confidently, did you remember to put a board so as not to spoil the table? Well done! We work carefully and take care of our hands! They are gold!
It should turn out so beautiful!
Now it's time for the dirty work! We take sandpaper and thoroughly sand it! We don't regret our block! This book has gone through a lot over the years! We pay special attention to the corners! They should be rounded, frayed and worn the most!
And again, don’t forget to take care of yourself! If you have breathing problems or allergies to dust, wear a medical mask! There will be a lot of fine paper dust!
Here's what I got.
OK it's all over Now! The boring part is over! While the family wasn't looking, we quickly cleaned up the pile of rubbish we had made, made some tea/coffee, and picked up our brushes and paints in a great mood!
I used watercolor, gouache, acrylic, charcoal and coffee.
Let's start painting using wet watercolor technique! We thoroughly moisten our cuts with strong coffee! You can use water, of course, but with coffee everything will look older and more natural.
Well, then - the flight of your imagination! Imagine everything that could happen to a book over decades! She could be burning, drowning, lying in the sun or in a damp basement! Turn yellow, mold and much, much more! Leave traces of all these twists and turns on its pages! During the painting process, you can additionally sand the wet paper, rubbing and fraying the sheets even more!
Bend and crumple the sheets while they are still wet! Make your book history! Done? Great! Let's send it out to dry!
In the meantime, let's take care of the capital!
Of course, the real thing won’t work, we’ll imitate it!
Everything is extremely simple! We take a piece of twine of the required length, a piece of cotton and a thread of a suitable color, I have floss, iris is also perfect! Fold a piece of fabric in half, insert a string and sew over the edge! All!
We send it to age in a cup of coffee!
When both the block and the captal have dried well, we glue one to the other. I used silicone glue, you can also use PVA and Moment Crystal, in general, whatever you have on hand and what’s convenient for you!
Has it dried out? Fine! Tuck the ends in and you're done! You can cut off the excess, but then don’t forget to glue the captal threads with PVA so they don’t unravel!
It's time to add a bookmark. It can be anything. The main thing is not to forget to give your bookmark a good beating!
It's cover time! From thick cardboard, cut out a rectangle of the required size (+0.5 cm, on each side, to the size of the block) and cover it with the paper of your choice! It can be anything! Scrap paper, colored children's paper, rice paper, packaging. Everything is at your discretion!
BUT! I have a little advice on this topic. I still have some colored paper left over from my kindergarten days! Perestroika times, dull, thin, terrible quality! + also turned yellow with age! Great! just what I need! It frays and crumbles on its own and looks very natural when aged!
Therefore, in the store, choose the cheapest colored paper, thin, dull in color, not coated and without any newfangled additives. This is rare these days, but you can find it. 
It's up to you to decide, of course. Maybe your book will be covered in leather
Next, with the cover, we act just as cruelly and mercilessly as with the block! We sand, pour coffee on it, paint it, bend it and crumple it, put the imprint of time, in general
Let's dry it. I didn’t put it under pressure, it’s more natural. Glue it to the block and use our favorite saucepan again! As abs, of course
In the meantime, let's get to the spine! We are already at the finish line! Everything will be ready soon! Cut out a strip of the required size from thin cardboard. Please note! the spine will be rounded, so + 1 cm to the height of the block. And of course, you need to glue it somehow! + another 1 cm to the width.
We draw these allowances for gluing with a pen, and draw the rest of the area with these grooves, using an awl. This is so that the spine is smoothly bent like a real book
Cover with suitable fabric. I have linen, it looks very textured and I really like it!)
And again we take sandpaper and paints into our hands . Roots usually get the most! So don't be shy!
We try the spine on the block and glue it:
OK it's all over Now! Your book is ready! Looks like the real thing (and weighs like the real thing)!
And I made such a stand from my books!
In the same way you can make small old books for your dolls.
Thank you all for your attention, I hope my experience is useful to you!
Making a book cover
For this we will use cardboard. It should be tight. In order to determine the size, we compare the rectangle of cardboard with the size of our pages. The cover should be 5-6 millimeters larger at the edge, top and bottom. In addition to these two rectangles, we must cut out one more strip. Its length should be equal to the length of the cardboard, and its width should correspond to the width of the end.
Cut out two pieces from the fabric again. The first one should be equal in length to our piece of cardboard for the end, and 5-6 centimeters wider than it. The second is equal in width to the first, but is already 5-6 centimeters longer in length.
Next, we lay out our cardboard boxes: two wide and large ones on the sides, a small one in the middle. There should be a gap of about 5 millimeters between them. On the inside of our “cover” in the middle we glue a small piece of fabric that we cut out. We glue it so that the fabric covers the middle, gaps and extends onto large cardboards. We turn the cover over and glue a large piece of fabric to its outer side using the same principle. We glue the remaining ends inside. Let the cover dry.
We're left with the most interesting part. We take the paper that we chose for the cover. Carefully glue the paper to the cardboard from the outside, making sure that it is even, without any kind of “bumps”. We bend the edges into the inside. The paper should cover 2-3 centimeters from the edges from the inside.
All that remains is to glue our voluminous book to the cover with your own hands. Open the cover. Remember, we had 5 centimeters of fabric left, which we glued to the end? This fabric now needs to be glued to the cover. Under no circumstances glue the end itself! Only fabric on the sides. Before you seal everything, check that the book lies flat on the cover, so that there are no edges protruding anywhere. Everything should be neat and beautiful.
We take 2 A4 sheets, fold them in half and glue them to the endpapers, taking the outer pages of the book. Let it dry.
How to staple many separate sheets
Good evening. Finally, the hot weather drove me home and I had some time to write the next topic.
In my first article, I told you how you can make a book from fairly improvised materials. I’m reading that book now (by the way, the irregularities on the flyleaf were almost completely smoothed out when the glue completely dried).
In the comments there were questions in the style of “how to memorize individual sheets?” I'll tell you about this today. Of course, the result will be completely different from the book. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any decent material on hand that could be inserted into the softcover. But someone may find it useful nonetheless.
First, traditionally, a few words about fibers.
The fibers in office paper are arranged as shown in the photo. Why is it good? This is good because if we have a bunch of sheets, then when we sew them, our “book” will open and leaf through well, because the fibers of the paper will be located along the spine.
It should be noted that OpenOffice Writer has one very interesting function (I would be very grateful if someone wrote in the comments whether this is available in MS Word). He knows how to mirror fields. The picture will make it clearer:
This way, we can set the internal margins a little larger than the external ones, because we will need them for stitching.
We will need: 1. The sheets themselves (I took a blank from my old educational screw-not-terribly sewn block). 2. Jigsaw. You can take a hacksaw with a thin blade. But a jigsaw gives an even thinner and more accurate cut. However, it will be difficult for them to cut a thick block. 3. The “two-pieces-of-wood-with-holes-fastened-with-two-bolts-with-wing-nuts” clamp, familiar to you from the first article. And, perhaps, there is no way to do this without a clamp. Fortunately, all its components cost pennies.
We carefully collect our stack of sheets and clamp them between pieces of wood. The stack should protrude 5–6 mm.
We take a jigsaw in our hands and saw. We need to make paired cuts in the shape of a split "V". In this case, my stack contains about 60 sheets and I make cuts to a depth of 3-4 mm. If the stack is larger, then we cut a little deeper - 4–5 mm (remember to set the internal margins a little larger!). For the long side of an A4 sheet, 6 paired cuts will be enough.
Now we have a stack of sheets with cuts. We take nylon thread - it is thin and durable. Using the cuts as wedges, we connect the sheets into one block.
And a little bigger.
We coat the end with glue, making sure that the glue gets into the cuts. We clamp the block between pieces of wood (do not forget to lay clean sheets so that the block does not stick to the press). We wait until it dries. If necessary, trim the edges as described in the link above.
This turns out to be a reversal.
That's it, you can already read.
How to make a binding for such a book is wonderfully described here. If this is too difficult, then take a sheet of Whatman paper. In a familiar printing house, we ask you to make a creasing (punching a groove) according to the measurements from the article and glue the cover from whatman paper.
The maximum number of sheets that I have sewn together in this way is about 130. The block opens easily and is quite strong. Of course, if such a block is purposefully destroyed, it will collapse. But just reading is very comfortable. I won’t talk about more sheets - I’m afraid to lie.
Good books, high-quality pdfs and pleasant reading!
Shall we decorate?
Our voluminous DIY book is already ready, but if you still have a desire, you can still decorate it. You can add a ribbon as a bookmark, you can stick something on the cover that is directly related to the content of the book, you can leave your initials or a memorable quote on the first page. Everything will depend only on who and why you made this book, and on your imagination, of course. So, friends, don’t be afraid to come up with ideas, because now you know exactly the answer to the question of how to make a book yourself.
The perfect notepad
Midori Traveler's Notebook is a Japanese notebook that is especially loved by travelers and designers. The book has a simple design: a leather base, an elastic band and two notebook blocks inside. The leather, worn over time, gives it a special charm, bringing to mind the diaries of travelers from past centuries.
The ergonomics of the notebook are excellent. There is a lot of space for notes, but the book itself easily fits in a jacket pocket. She is not afraid of a large number of photographs, from which other notebooks stop closing. Actually, this is why travelers appreciate it; postcards, tickets and passports can easily fit inside, there is even the opportunity to make a separate pocket for storage.
The main advantage is the ease of repair and replacement of blocks for specific tasks. A block for notes, sketches, a diary, a planner and even a mini photo album in one notebook. Needless to add that Midori is completely devoid of such a disadvantage as fear of the first leaf syndrome. Office nerds will love it.
How to make your own brochure
Self-production of brochures (i.e. at home) compared to printing is convenient because:
- you can receive a ready-made brochure very quickly, spending literally 1-2 hours, - you will receive a brochure on the topic that is most important to you now, and in the quantity that you immediately need.
Making brochures yourself is always preferable to printing if you need a small number of copies (up to 50 pieces of one type). Over 50 pcs. You can also make it at home if you spend time on it. But it will be more convenient to do this in a printing house - a large shooting gallery there is more profitable than a home one, including in terms of money.
If you are a fairly advanced computer user, then you can also create brochures yourself, i.e. compose them yourself from those RP articles that you need and layout them in the form of an A5 brochure using an application program (macros) for WORD, for example, or through some other programs. (You can download macros for WORD here.)
For those comrades who, for some reason, cannot spend time on the layout of brochures on their own, the MLD “Working Path” offers a List of already laid out brochures (pdf format) for making them at home. This List includes the most popular and important topics in our country today. This List will be constantly updated with new material.
So, how to make a brochure yourself:
You will need:
1. Computer.
2. A printer (preferably a laser - 1 copy of a brochure is cheaper) or even better an MFP (multifunctional device - printer + scanner + copier). An MFP is convenient if you need more than one copy of a brochure. It has a higher printing speed and a much longer resource, which allows it to be used, among other things, for printing leaflets. Inexpensive models cost approximately 10-11 thousand rubles, which is quite acceptable for ml circles or cells. But at the same time, they allow you to print up to 12-15 thousand pages per month!
3. Copier (copier). (see above, paragraph 2).
4. Paper 120 g white.
5. 160 g colored paper (in small quantities - only for the cover of the brochure).
6. Stapler (long), which is capable of fastening sheets not at the edge, but in the middle (sold in branded office supply stores). You can buy this stapler in all specialized branded stationery stores or order it in online stores. Estimated price - 600-700 rubles. This stapler uses regular staples.
Step #1
Print the pdf file of the brochure you need on a printer. If you only need 1 copy of the brochure, print on both sides. (Pay special attention when loading paper when running an already printed sheet from the back blank side - the text on both sides should go in the same direction!). If you need several copies of brochures, then it is more convenient to print on one side of paper - then you will get what is called the “original brochure layout”, from which you can then use a photocopier to make as many copies as you need. And also print the required number of brochures if necessary, without downloading them again from the Internet.
Step #2
Using a copy machine (Xerox or MFP) and paper step 4, make the number of copies of the brochure that you need. Printing sheets for the finished brochure, unlike the original layout, must be double-sided - on both sides of the paper.
To print the first and second pages of the brochure (brochure cover), use colored and thicker paper, step 5.
Step #3
Arrange the sheets of the number of brochures you need in order. The first sheet is the colored cover.
Step #4
Staple the brochures with a stapler, step 4, in the middle of the sheet in two places, just as thin school notebooks are stapled.
* * *
As a result, you should end up with these beautiful brochures that you can give to anyone who wants to read them.
MLD "Working Path"
Year two: development
In a year and a half, 3 development teams were replaced on the project.
The first (Moscow). They suggested doing everything in HTML5. They couldn’t cope with the animation of the third screen and realized that they were not interested in making books. We parted as friends.
The second (Minsk). In Minsk they prefer Cocos. With grief in half, we made up all the screens. But half of the animations worked crookedly. For example, they couldn’t achieve inertia when spinning the carousel. Tired of many edits, the programmers hid with the code.
The third (St. Petersburg). They wrote everything from scratch, instilling hope in us, but at the moment of introducing ready-made sounds they set a cosmic estimate, clearly of a barrier nature. Having never finished the project, they gave away the source code and now boast about the application on their website.
But we did not lose faith in the Ideal Developer and as a result we found him...
Year one: applications
As a test, it was decided not to make the entire book, but to limit ourselves to one poem, which would be divided into 13 screens. For several months we came up with interactive and animation, drew, cut out, and collected illustrations. Then they remade everything again just as much. Over the course of the entire project, several sets of colored paper were cut and about 50 sheets with illustration elements were scanned.
The difficulty was that each animated object had to be scanned separately without background or overlap. Paws separately, tail separately. The process was as follows: for example, we cut out an applique for the eighth screen. We cut out clouds, mom, dad, cat and others and put everything together in a format without gluing, look, redo, look, glue each element separately onto a sheet, scan, assemble in Photoshop, animate.
Fortunately, the guys from the first development team cut all our psd into png themselves, removing most of the routine work from us.
Traditional book
As you already understand, the application is an electronic interpretation of the printed version of the publication. We published the book 3 years ago, in 2011. The paper book contained many poems, had a unique design, many hand-cut illustrations, and was awarded a Non fiction diploma for its design.
Inspired by the recognition, we invited the author to make an interactive version of the book for iPad. His children, like most others, do not let go of gadgets, preferring them to paper books, so he immediately agreed to this project.
