I handbound a photo album gift for my grandmother

Описание: Hello, good to see you here!
Welcome to my process video of making a book cover for a photo album and putting it together with a book block for my grandma's birthday gift.

My grandmother loves bees and even has some herself, therefore the motif was pretty clear to me from the get go. I embroidered something for the first time in my life and was veeeeery happy with how it turned out.
And then the process you can see in this video begins:

00:00 Embroidered cover cloth

I show you what kind of cloth I am using, this is a typical embroidery cloth you can find for stitching. It is white and fairly see-through, which is why the next step was needed.

02:03 Preparing the back of the cover
I am using textile glue to prepare the inside of the photoalbum cover. I cut away excess and loose strands of yarn and then glue them in place.

03:32 The photo album book body
This is a Carta Pura photo album book body I am using and luckily, next time I will be able to buy directly from the manufacturer. That way it doesn't have to be sent through the country twice to arrive at my place.
The book body is about 30x30 cm and has transparent sheets so that the photos don't rub against each other. It comes with a capital band and gauze, but without end paper. Now we need to cut the end paper as well as the carton for the cover.

06:29 End Paper and Carton
I am cutting the end paper as well as the carton for the front and back of the photo album cover to size. I am using bookbinding carton of roughly 2mm thickness. I am using my paper trimmer machine to cut the carton as soon as it fits in there.

09:09 Positioning the hard cover
Making a hardcover book can be difficult. I place the book block between the covers in the exact way I want to attach them. Then I use lightly sticky tape to connect them with these exact measurements.

10:35 Making book cloth out of my fabric
I am using Vlieseline, most of you will probably know it as iron on adhesive sheets called Heat N Bond or Vliesofix. You need to look up the instructions for your iron on sheets and follow those. In my case I have to place the sheets with the glue side towards the fabric and then iron it into place. The heat will activate the glue and I can then use bookbinding glue on it without it seeping through the fabric.

13:45 Gluing on the carton
The bookbinding glue will stick to the iron on sheet and I can use it now like normal book cloth. I am using Planatol AD 94/5 B bookbinding glue.
I make sure to know where i want to place it so that all the embroidered bees and flowers are visible. I do cover the back of the book cover with the iron on sheet as well.

15:21 Decorating the book cover
As I talk a little about my camera, because it keeps overheating and giving me a difficult time, you can see how I attach the corners on my cover. I am using linen bookbinding cloth and cut ot little shapes, similar to the letter M. I then attach it with the bookbinding glue.
I do the same for the spine of the book, it gets reinforced with the linen bookcloth and I love how it looks. I decide on a border last minute, next time I should do that first and then cover the border with the corners.

18:35 Attaching the cover to the book body
For attaching these two together, I cover all of the end paper and the gauze with glue. I have to position the book exactly where i need it and then simply close the cover onto the book body. I use a bone folder to get rid of any creases and folds and to make sure the two stick firmly together. After doing the same on the back of the photo album, I let it dry overnight.

20:55 Final Inscription
If you've seen me write before, you know my handlettering is horrific. It's okay, I accepted it by now, but here you can see me write an inscription to my grandmother, who hopefully won't be bothered much by the awful writing of it. It's the thought that counts and so on :D
I am using Posca Markers, because embroidering would've been very difficult.

22:05 Finishing the gift
I have this beautiful correspondence set from Pepin with Mucha motifs. I printed out some photos as well as a little starter set. All that's left to do is wrap this up in some thematic bee gift wrapping paper and give it to her on her birthday!

Thank you so much for joining me on this project. As always I appreciate any and all thoughts you have on the ASMR style video, on the camera problem I am facing, on videos you'd like to see next.

Hope to see you in the next video, best wishes
Francis :)


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Thank you for watching :)