Repairing Books and The Naked Book Art Show

Today, I'm finishing up a repair on a bible for an elderly woman, who drops things a lot. Especially, her scriptures. They took it to a guy to have it fixed and he fixed it, and then the cover of the book fell off again after another dropping. They called me to see if I could fix it and I stopped by to pick it up from them in Manti while I was at the temple there. The lady said she had 60 great grandchildren. WOW! I know it's silly, but my first thought was, "that's a lot of birthday cards to send out each year."

This photograph of the Manti Temple below was taken by my Father in Law, Jim Heywood. You can see more of his photos Here.

Just a few tips to everyone who wants to know how to repair a broken book.

#1- DO NOT use a brittle glue. Books are meant to be opened and therefore need a flexible glue to allow the book to open without the spine breaking. It's also a good idea to use an archival glue that will not eat away at the spine and pages of your book. I use Jade 403 which is a PVA based glue. It dries clear, it's very flexible and it is archival.

#2- DO NOT use an acidic tape to try and tape the book back together, especially, Athletic tape. It's acidic and will actually eat away at the spine and cover of your book. If you want to use a tape, you can use a bookcloth tape which is archival and meant for the spines of books.

In doing the bible, the man who had "repaired" the book before, had done the two DO NOTS and I had to fix his mistakes. It's really difficult to scrape off woodglue from the spine in order to salvage it (all you conservationists are gasping...I can hear you)

The athletic tape had eaten away at the cover of the book and one of the endpapers had to be cut out completely. Not savable but it was ugly any how. I'll post more about repairing the book when it's complete.

I've been really busy with ideas lately. In fact, I've done so much planning in my mind that I probably have looked like a lazy bum the last few days. I don't have anything to show for it yet but I'm excited about doing a few artbooks.

One of my books was accepted into Sandy23's Naked Book Show. You can see the catalog for the show Here.

Bookbinding Classes

I'm teaching a bookbinding class that starts in just one week. It will be every Thursday Night for the next month. This one is at Snow College in Ephraim, UT. I plan on doing several classes and workshops throughout this year. If you'd like me to come to your area and know of a good place that would host me, please let me know :)

Here's the flyer information for the class:

Make Your Own Journals and Sketchbooks!

Bookbinding Class (non-credit)

February 25th - March 18th

Thursdays 6-9 pm

We’ll learn how to make 10 different styles of books including Japanese Stab Bound, Rustic Leather Long Stitch and Pop-Up Books!

Class Description:

Beginning Bookbinding

Each student will create 10 different books throughout the course. Each book will be unique in style/design/materials. We'll be learning about bookbinding tools, techniques and about historic styles and contemporary styles of books.

Class Fee is $75 which INCLUDES ALL MATERIALS for the ten books, as well as some bookbinding tools. Students are required to bring their own ruler with metal edge, an Exacto-type craft knife with extra blades, a pencil and scissors.

How To Sign Up:

ANYONE can take this class including students and community members. You may register at the Continuing/Community Education Office located in the Greenwood Student Center, Room 141, between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Or you may call 283-7320 and request to be put on the class list. You must pay for the class at the Cashiers Office on the second floor of the Greenwood Student Center by the first day of class. The Cashiers Office will be open prior to the start time of the first class so you may pay before coming to class. You may contact me with more questions about the class by emailing: KarleighJae@Yahoo.com

My Journal

This is my new journal. It's 10 inches by 7 inches and 3.5 inches thick. It has about 5 different papers in it since I used the leftovers from various lots. I also used all the messed up pieces that were wrinkled or slightly dirty or had a corner torn off of it. I'm ok using messed up paper and it is a good way to use it all up so that it's not just floating around my workspace.




I used the woodburner to do the leaves design on the spine and plan on doing more on the cover. I had to do the spine first though since it has linen thread on the spine and I can't very well burn around that.

I even burned my name into it. I love it.

And I love how thick it is! It's a hefty and very important feeling book.

This below is from a wedding album I just finished. You can click here to see the album and description. This photo below shows the burned in wedding date that I did this afternoon, right before shipping it out. You might want to click on it to see it larger.

Great Video

Check out this video from the New Zealand Book Council.

This is a must see by any book or paper artist. I was amazed by this. Such intricate detail in the designs. I love it.

Burning into Leather

I received a wood burner for my birthday a few months ago and I've been putting it to good use. I just finished making a journal for myself with a really neat burned in spine. I'll make another post about that next week. This photo below shows the woodburner. It's a Colwood "CUB" and works wonderfully.

I'll give you a preview of some of the things I've done with it.

This book has a skeleton key with an ivy type plant burned in around the border. I really just had fun the other night making this one. This book is also for sale in my shop right now.

This photograph below shows a date that I burned into the leather strap. Two identical books were made and the date was the wedding anniversary of the couple that received the books.

These were made for two brothers who love to draw and their mother said that one of her sons was very picky about the paper he used in his sketchbooks so we put in Rives BFK. I hope he enjoys using that :)

This was a recent order. I antiqued the moose onto the journal cover and then burned in the name on the lower right corner.

This is one my dad (Rett Ashby) did and we sold it in my ETSY shop. The sketch was done on a darker leather. It's best seen by enlarging the photo by clicking on it.

This one below was also a custom order. I burned the children's faces onto the leather from photographs. The book actually wasn't stitched yet when this photo was taken but it was a long stitch with the exposed thread on the spine and the faces were on the wrap around part of the cover.

This was a custom order in which I burned in "David's Genius Ideas."

I've tried burning into sealed leather and it sort of carves away the leather instead of leaving a burned mark. None of the leathers above were sealed but the last photo of David's Genius Ideas shows a leather that was coated and it was also an oil tanned leather, so it left a lighter area around the burned letters where the sealant was heated or melted away. You can see that the burning really shows up on lighter leathers well like the chrome tanned one of the kids faces.

I've recently found some vegetable tanned lambskin though (some is available in my shop) and I'm excited because it burns really well and it is not sealed so I can antique it and get different looks from it. I'm really excited to be able to use it on cord bound books and get an old book look.

Hopefully I'll have some done in about a week to show you.

Thanks Dad and Mom for the fun Birthday Present!

The Fool's Cap Award

I'm on the Etsy Bookbinding Street Team. We've recently been given a team challenge to create a book that represents the festival season (Carnival, Mardi Gras or whatever festival you have this time of year in your portion of the world.)

Carnival, in my mind, is really just frivolity and light heartedness, and the best thing to symbolize that would be the jester's hat or fool's cap. Click here to see the book in my shop or GO VOTE! on the etsy team blog by using the poll on the right side of the team's blog.

A little spotlight for my husband

Hooray for the new banner! My husband Daniel has been making my banners. The side signs on them changes frequently to allow advertising for each other's shops as well as info for when we have sales or special books in the shop.

I really enjoy the posts that he writes on his blog, especially the illustration ones. :) You can see his blog here: Daniel Heywood's Blog

And his website here: Heywood-Photography

I'm so blessed to have such a creative husband.

Sewing Frame Knots and Sewing Tutorial

This tutorial shows how to use the sewing frame that Daniel made for me. It shows me sewing a 9 x 12 book for a wedding sign-in book. She's opted for three books, splitting the memory scrapbook into two books, since making it as one book would have been so large.



See my previous post for more about the sewing frame, and you can click here to see the first post about this cord bound sign-in book.