I have big plans afoot to create some bookbinding instructional videos – but first I have to learn how to edit movies – fortunately imovie is pretty easy to figure out – I humbly present my first attempt at a movie created by yours truly

Morning Bike Ride – AND my first movie ever! from Ruth Bleakley on Vimeo.

I was approached by someone looking to have a well-loved cookbook repaired for a friend. The book was in sad shape – one of the covers was completely separate from the text block, and the other was barely hanging on by an end page. One of the signatures had come loose as well. I was able to fully repair it as you can see in the photos below – these were the steps:

1. Remove traces of earlier repair – tape is my arch enemy when it comes to book repair – obviously duct tape is the worst, followed closely by packing tape, scotch tape and gummed book repair tape. Someone obviously attempted to repair this many years ago, but the adhesive on the gummed tape becomes brittle over time.

2. Scrape as much glue and paper off the spine as possible – the super (the mesh covering the spine inside) was almost impossible to remove because of the brown hot glue used to attach it, so I decided to just glue another super on top of it rather than risk pulling all of the stitching out.

3. Reattach loose signatures to text block – I did this by sewing with Irish linen thread through the holes that already existed and linking them to the text block.

4. Glue on a new super to act as a strong internal hinge – sometimes new mass produced books don’t have a super lining the inside hinge, and the only thing holding the book to the cover is the endpaper, which over time cracks.

5. Lift off the endpaper and slide the super between it and the inside cover – this takes some delicate work, steaming to lift off old glue and a handy micro spatula. I glued everything and let it dry before creating a new spine.

6. Cut spine peice and line it with cardstock cut to the same size as the spine, add cords at top and bottom for nicer presentation and to preserve the spine when it’s pulled off the shelf.

7. Cut the front and back covers and peel back the cover – this looks terribly abusive but is necessary to create room for the new spine.

8. Slide the new spine underneath the cover sheet and glue it down – the middle of the spine, the part lined in paper that actually touches the spine of the text block SHOULD NEVER BE GLUED (unless you’re making a tight back spine, but you’re not). Only the “wings” of the spine piece are glued, allowing free movement of the text block when the book is opened.

9. Cut notches and glue down the top and bottom of the spine – I like to make mine neat by sliding it between the endpaper and the book board – some might call this fussy, but I think it looks nicer than a piece of fabric over the endpapers.

10. Put the book under weight with rods to strengthen the hinge – It’s important to put something in that groove where the cover meets the spine – it allows the glue to make full contact between the paper and fabric and strengthens the most breakable part of the book. You can use Brass edge boards (ideal), knitting needles – or in my case, think dowels left over from mobile making.

Voila! a lovely new useable book!

I have two classes coming up at the Falmouth night school, so mark your calenders – Registration begins January 11th and the classes begin in February – wednesdays 6:30-8:30.

PAPER MARBLING
Ruth Bleakley – BFA in Studio Art, Bookbinder and Paper Artist.
Create marbled paper that will amaze your friends. Use it for card making, scrapbooking, and collage projects. The art of marbling paper started centuries
ago. E xplore three different techniques including Japanese Suminagashi marbling, marbling with shaving cream and traditional Turkish marbling, which is the kind you often see in old leather-bound books. The best part about marbling is that it’s much easier than it looks, and it’s easy to get great results. Materials fee: $25 payable to instructor at 1st class.
Fee: $49 – 3 sessions …………………………………………..Wed – 6:30-8:30 pm

POP-UP CARDMAKING
Ruth Bleakley – BFA in studio art, Bookbinder and Paper Artist.
If you’ve ever wondered how pop-up books work, here’s your chance to learn and make some neat cards in the process. Learn techniques to create simple but impressive
pop-up cards, using only paper, glue and an exacto knife. Also learn how to create custom envelopes for your cards. Students who take the Paper Marbling class can use their marbled papers to decorate cards or create envelopes, and their materials fee will be waived. Bring an exacto knife, cutting mat and metal ruler to 1st class. Materials fee: $10 payable to instructor at 1st class.
Begins March 10.
Fee: $49 – 3 sessions …………………………………………..Wed – 6:30-8:30 pm

To Register -
Call 508-548-5739
MasterCard & Visa Accepted
9am-4pm weekdays beginning Monday, January 11 until a course is full. Please have your credit card and course information ready. Course fees must be paid in full by MasterCard or Visa.

Registration forms also available at the community school website.
Click on Community School and then click on Registration Form.

Merry Christmas everybody! Here’s a little Christmas craft project I indulged in since we’re lucky enough to have a holly bush (more like a tree really) in our yard.

We had a big snowstorm overnight, with a total accumulation of 15 inches of snow! I stayed in and worked on a book repair job (both covers fallen off, and no spine) and Meowstro the cat decided to “help” – I thought she should go enjoy the snow instead.

MEOOOWWWWW!

*whomp*

I just unearthed some photos of a really neat project I completed this summer. It’s a giant birthday card in the style of an award portfolio – so it has buckram-covered book board outside and inside large sheets of paper for lots of people to sign. It commemorated a 90th birthday and several of the events that featured prominently in this person’s life, specifically lifelong research of horseshoe crabs (I live in a very marine-science oriented community) and also fond memories of riding the CYCLONE rollercoaster at Coney Island in the 20s.

I drew the crabs on the outside with paint pen and sealed it with a matte sealer, for protection – inside I drew with micron pen. The card was quite large – 12×18″. Plenty of room for lots of good wishes! I included a teal and a blue gel pen to sign it with.

Here’s a really neat Etsy product – a san-serif wall hanging featuring your favorite san-serif fonts (Futura is my favorite) made from laser-cut wood!

For $60 from PepperSprout’s etsy shop , ships out mid-january

In the beginning bookbinding class that I taught in October and November at the Falmouth Community school, we made paste papers – they are a really easy and fun way to make decorative papers. It’s kind of like finger-painting for grown-ups.

Supplies, Including tempera Paints, Paste, Inks and a brush

Whit making some paste paper

This is the paste paper I started in the first photo

You can make your own paste papers at home – first you’ll need some paste, which you can make easily with flour, water and a microwave.

The ratio of flour to water is approximately 1 tablespoon per 1/3 cup of water – one cup of paste made with three tablespoons of flour and 1 cup of water is a good amount if you’re making paste papers with other people and don’t want to run out – for my class I made 8 cups of the stuff! mmmm.

Stir up your flour and water in a microwave safe bowl – I often make mine in a pyrex liquid measuring cup. Whisk the flour into the water with a wisk or a fork – you can minimize lumps by slowly adding water to the flour, rather than adding flour to the water.

Put it in the microwave for 30 seconds on High – take it out and stir it, 30 more seconds, stir – you may see it start to change in texture – it’ll get kind of opaque and thick. Keep microwaving until it just starts to rise up in the center and is thick and gel-like – give it a good stir.

When the paste is a little cooler, separate it into smaller cups and add in whatever color you like of acrylic, tempera or liquid watercolor paints.

Brush it (or smear with your hands) onto a sheet of paper – I hope you put newspapers down to protect your table! When your paper is evenly coated with a layer of paste, take whatever object you like and carve a design into it – fork tines are great for stripes, crumpled paper is good for a textured look, bottles make nice circles.

Leave it to dry overnight – if it’s very wrinkly or curled, iron it on the back side. if you are using it to cover a book, the glue will smooth out any wrinkles.

Here are some photos from My Beginning Bookbinding class at the Falmouth Community School this past October/November, where we made paste paper in the first class to use in our books for the following two classes.

Lotus Blossom Journal

Originally uploaded by MissRuth

I’m proud of this latest hardcover book – it showcases some of my favorite papers and book cloth.

The book was completely made by me from start to finish – I hand cut, folded and sewed the pages together, and created the cover out of beautiful hand-stenciled japanese Katezome paper. Originating in the Nara Period (710-794), katagami, or Japanese paper stencil patterns, were first used for applying designs in dye to leather goods such as stirrups and warrior helmets, and later to kimonos and paper.

The spine and corners are made from Japanese silk book cloth and the front cover has a delicate strip of gold paper running along the spine. The top and bottom of the text block feature hand-sewn green endbands. The pages inside hold many secret fun surprises interspersed among the blank pages, and the endpapers are a gorgeous handmade lokta paper printed with delicate gold flowers.

Last Weekend, Ryan and I held the opening to our As the Crow Flies show, which features hanging mobiles and cool wall art. Here are a few pictures after the opening when we were hanging around with some of our friends.

This one is called Jupiter’s Crow and it was designed and create by Ryan. It’s based on the fable “The Vain Jackdaw” by Aesop.

All of the mobiles were designed and created by us, and they are made of paper and wood or metal, depending on what we chose to use as hanging sticks. The black crow mobiles come with either 3,4,5 or 6 crows on them,and I think that they look best hanging in groups close to the ceiling – like a flock.

Why Crows? I’ve always thought they were very clever and elegant birds (nevermind that they eat roadkill). Every day a crow family of four swoops down to our compost pile between 9-10 AM to investigate what new scraps we’ve added. One of the bigger ones hops up to the lip of the compost bin, takes a look around and dives right in. A few seconds later you see choice items flying out over the edge, like bread, apple cores and corn cobs and the rest of the crow family eats it up, or they all pick up their food and fly off together to eat it. I’m impressed at their teamwork, and thus, they are the inspiration for my flock of crow mobiles.