In my previous post I already mentioned Kathleen’s blog calender, which you can find on her blog Verbeelding. Apart from that, Kathleen also shared a very handy sewing planner. I’m starting to consider Kathleen as my personal organiser 🙂
To keep all those sewing plans nicely together, I wanted to make a booklet, as I’ve already done before. But since I’m pretty inpatient and since I wanted to make that booklet now (instead of getting all materials first), I started going with what I had lying around: washi tape. And half an hour later, I had a book.
What do you need?
- Paper. In my case, 24 printed sheets of the sewing planner. Tip: print on both sides. I forgot, and I had to get the glue out to tape all my empty pages together
- Washi tape, wide enough to keep all your quires together
- A sharp needle
- Thread
- 1 sheet of more sturdy paper, coloured, if possible
- A paper cutter or scissors to cut all your pages the same size
How to bind a book with washi tape
- Divide your sheets in equal piles, so you can fold your quires. In my case, I had 24 sheets and made 4 piles of 6 sheets.
- Fold your piles in half. In my case, because I didn’t print double-sided, I had to fold each sheet separately and then put them on a pile. I then kept this pile together with washi tape. There’s no need for you to do so as well, you can just fold all the sheets of 1 pile in 1 go.
- If necessary, cut your quires so all pages are the same size. I didn’t do this for my book (as I’ve said, this is the lazy housewife method).
- Put all quires on a pile.
- To keep the separate quires together, I sewed them together as described by Séverine.
- Get your coloured sheet of paper out, and cut it in half.
- Make sure that your quires are aligned, and put one of the coloured halves on top. Make sure you put it 1/4 cm from the folding edge. Put something on it to weigh it down, if necessary.
- Get your widest washi tape out and tape it as such that you tape the coloured sheet to the quires.
- Gently fold the washi tape over the edge, and press it down, so all quires are attached to your washi tape.
- Carefully turn the whole thing.
- Place the second piece of coloured paper on the back of the book, in the same way as you did for the front.
- Fold the washi tape over it, and tape the coloured paper down.
- Rub all sides of the washi tape again, to ensure that all paterials are attached.
- Flip through your booklet, and check whether reinforces are necessary (I had to glue the back and front of each quire together if I wanted to lose the empty pages).
Done!
Keep in mind that washi tape booklets are booklets that should stay put on your sewing table. Don’t carry them around too much. They are kept together by washi tape, not duct tape. Although… Duct tape now has a whole design line. Maybe worth a try as well?