About book binding

 Welcome Spring!! 𑁍ࠬܓ

As someone who adores the changing of seasons, spring (together with fall) is my favorite time of the year! It’s a mix of weather and temperatures, making it always a little unpredictable, and therefore a surprise when it comes to starting the day and making the best of it! So far, we’ve been blessed with some cold but sunny days — which is arguably one of the best weather combinations — and I already see the first crocuses starting to bloom.

However, with the beginning of this new month, I started losing my motivation to do things that bring me joy. I felt a little unfocused and bored last week, even though I have so many fun options to make my time enjoyable!

Yesterday, two friends came over to Micky’s and my place for a little ‘arts & crafts’ night, and it actually turned out to be the spark of creativity and craftsmanship I desperately needed!

-ˋˏ ༻ My friend taught us how to bind books! ༺ ˎˊ-

She’s been doing this for a while now: using old paper, photos, and other fun stickers & motifs she’s collected over the years to create something new that she can use on an everyday basis! You fold papers, glue some together if they have a print on one side, create multiple booklets out of some sheets, mark dots, poke holes, and finally sew them together into one book! Once finished, the fun part begins — making a cover and decorating it to make it unique and fitting for your desires! 𖤓

Even though the general process of bookbinding might seem monotonous and repetitive at some points, it actually turned out to be a perfect group activity, since we were able to talk about god knows what and still be productive in our process! I definitely had my struggles with the sewing part since my perfectionist self needed everything to be as neat and tight as possible, but it still came out prettier and better than I could’ve ever imagined!

Since I’m so proud of my very first journal, I’ll leave some pictures of it here:

 

I have this flower calendar from my family's flower shop that I adore and especially the page of February was one of my favourites! Once I noticed that I could actually use these as a cover for future book like I did with this one, my heart became a lot warmer! :D

 

For the insides of the cover, I created small collages out of picture snippets from my friend to stabilise it and have something special as a surprise once you open it! ✶⋆.˚

This was out table setup for the night! A whole lot of paper and small needles~

────────୨ৎ────────

With this project, I can now already add something to my New Year’s resolution of trying 10 new things this year: 

✓ binding a book

It also helped me remember that sometimes you just have to start things instead of overthinking them hundreds of times. If you keep thinking about things to do, you’ll never finish or even start them! 𓆑

My spring might have started out a little rough, but there’s nothing that a little time with your friends, some laughs together, and a new favorite hobby can’t fix!!

I’ll try to keep this motivation!! ⊱✿⊰

༝༚༝༚, Kat