I was so excited to receive How to Make Books from my parents for Christmas! I’ve been coveting this book since it came out in November 2007. And in person, I was blown away by its details:
What you can’t begin to appreciate from that publisher’s cover photo up top is that the cover of the book is thick chipboard, with a letterpress printed title and a screen-printed cloth binding over the spine.
The author, Esther K. Smith, is clearly a deep aficionado of book-making. She and her partner own Purgatory Pie Press, whose website is also amazing.
Beautiful, playful typography everywhere…
… And the step-by-steps are graphical and interesting, in addition to being easy to follow.
How to Make Books is one of those wonderful craft books that I know will be on my shelf for a long time. It covers seven styles of book construction in detail, and offers up a wealth of ideas for variations. You could make yourself an endless number of books from this resource. It’s not just a collection of cute projects, it’s a real crafting tool.
How excited was I to see this accordion business card holder with playing card covers?
For the record, the book details making instant books and zines, accordions like this one, stab-stitched books, pamphlets and chapbooks, mutant books, and long-stitch and coptic books.
I’m so eager to try out some of the cool stitching techniques…
… And this absolutely kills me. Full of awesome.
As I was pulling links together for this post, I found that Esther Smith has a brand new book out:
Yee-Haw! Back to coveting with me!
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