Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Six-Pack Book Tutorial

If you liked the Cookie Box Tutorial, you may enjoy this one, also. After the excitement of last night's Superbowl Game, there were, of course, left over trash to be either thrown away, or recycled. I saved this one beer carrier from a six-pack of a micro brew, because I kind of liked the graphics on it, and the name cracked me up... "Raging bitch"... ha ha. I decided to make it into a book!

Start by deconstructing the box, leaving a flap
When you deconstruct the box, you should leave flaps on either side of the front cover, and on the left side of the rear cover.  (Or right side, depending on how you look at it. You want each cover to have a finished end, so if you're not sure, then put the two covers together like a book, and verify you have the outer end flaps correct.)

Folding over the spine flap
 The front cover will also have the spine flap, which you will then fold over to create the depth you want for your book. I went with a 1" spine. The remainder will be glued to the other half of the book cover. Once you create the fold, glue the two pieces together.

Glue remainder to the rear cover, taking care to keep the covers straight (level) across the top.
 Then choose a paper to cover the interior, and cut to size, going all the way under the flaps, and to the spine. I covered the spine with the piece from the back cover. It doesn't really matter, as long as the inside is all covered with a nice paper.


Use PVA glue evenly, not too thick, to adhere paper to cardboard



 Only glue the flaps after you have glued in the end pages to the covers. Then glue the flaps down onto the interior, where you already have the nice paper.
 
Glue flaps down over each end.
 After you get the paper glued inside, you need to create the jig for your stitches. This is all the same as the Cookie Box Tutorial. With the beer box, you can actually have a nice finish that you can't always have with the cookie box, or any other smaller box. You need enough extra material to flip over for the edge. If you have that with a box, it definitely makes for a nicer looking book.


This creates a nice weight, and finished look for the book.
Next, use a dab of rubber cement, or craft glue stick, to gently adhere the jig to the spine. Make your marks and with an awl, carefully punch holes through the marks. I did six signatures with six holes in each.



 After your holes are made, carefully peel off the jig, and use that to create your template for punching the holes in your signatures. Measure out your string, and thread the signatures into the spine the same as in the previous tutorial.


 When I measure for string, I always go (loosely) end to end times the number of signatures, then I add an extra six inches to that amount for knotting.





I used a butterscotch colored waxed linen thread for this book because of one of the colors in the cover. I like keeping my stitching kind of evenly spaced, but I've also done books with off-set stitching. It's totally up to you and what you feel like doing. Keep in mind that if you change the stitching locations for each signature, you will have to have a different template to punch the holes... it takes more time, but it's not difficult.

The finished spine
I used watercolor paper for this book, instead of lighter weight paper.

Having flaps makes a nicer book edge, don't you think?
 I didn't include all of the instructions, as I have those in the Cookie Box Tutorial, and it's exactly the same. The only difference is the flaps, and the fact that I added the decorative paper to the inside of the book.

3 comments:

Terriaw said...

I loved your cookie box project but now I really love this six-pack book cover! So many micro-brews have such cool labels and packaging. What a great way to preserve those great designs. I love the look of the claps and the decorative paper in the inside. I really need to get a beginners kit to try making one of these.

shari said...

Thanks, Terri! I think this book turned out nicer. More finished looking.

Do you want me to put something together for you? I think I can figure something out....

Terriaw said...

um, yes! sorry, I was reading through this tutorial again and just noticed your comment back!

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