Making my final book

Since making my first prototype book I have learnt a lot: ~ Make it more personal becasue last time it looked like I’d just made a sketchbook for someone ~ Use clamps when sticking the pages together to weigh the pages down and hold them together whilst

the glue is drying ~ Use tape or glue dots to stick the images and tracing paper down otherwise the paper and images got

bumpy ~ Use different card/paper because the paper was too bland and basic in my prototype

I started making my final book a good couple of weeks before my deadline because I wanted to give myself enough time to make another one if things didn’t work out. I had one more shoot to do about three weeks before my deadline and I still needed to buy different crafting resources and order my prints to make my book so I had to make sure I was fully prepared before creating my book. I went out and bought some cartridge paper as the new pages for my book because I felt cartirdge paper is a little thick- er to card and more things can be designed and stuck on the paper without it warping. I searched and serarched for A5 cartridge paper but I couldn’t find any so I bought A4 paper and had to cut it in half to make the pages A5. Once the pages were cut the book making could start.

When I made my book last time I had to pinch the side that had been glued together until the glue had dried because I didn’t use a clamp but this time I didn’t want to do that because I had a lot more pages so I wanted to use clamps to save time. I didn’t own any clamps but I was pretty sure I knew someone who did so I asked them and they did. I went to collect them but when they saw the amount of pages I had they thought bulldog clips would work just as well. We made sure all my pages were lined up evenly by lining them up against a few pieces of wood. Once the pages were all lined up I cut some spare pieces of cartridge paper up and placed them underneath the bulldog clips but on top of the cartridge paper

so that the clips didn’t make indents in the paper. I then started glueing. It took a few layers of glue to stick the pages together, more than last time but I think that was because I had a lot more pages than last time. This is what the book looked like after the last coat of glue went on:

Once all the pages were stuck together and the glue was dry it was time for me to start adding my im- ages in. I had already written out a draft for what each page would have on it and had written out my memories for each place ready to write on the tracing paper when I was ready, so all I had to do was work out where abouts on the page I wanted my image placed and tape the tracing paper over the top.

I started off with splitting my page into four to work out where the middle was but it turns out it didn’t really help so with each picture I tried to centre it as best as I could. I bought some small foam pads in order to stick my images down on the pages because it meant that nothing that was a liquid was touch- ing the prints to make them warp or make them bubble like last time, it also gave them a little bit of a 3D effect. Once all my images were stuck in started to work out where I was going to put my tracing paper and to test ot see if it would work with the double sided tape that I’d bought. It did and it ooked really good actually. The tape that I got was quite thin so it was quite discreet when it was stuck at the side of the page.

I started with the chapters and then went onto the memories. I didn’t want to keep the same size piece of paper for every memory and I didn’t want to stiuck them all in the same position as well so I wrote the memories out all on different sizes of paper and then decided where I wanted to place them. With some of the images and memories I only left the part of the picture exposed that I was talking about in my memory. I wanted to make the book personal so I bought some stickers that are specifically for scrap- books to stick on the pages and I’m really happy with how it looks.

I thougt it pwould take me quite a while to make my book and put it together but it only took me a day to make it inside I now just need to stick the cover on.

I’m really happy with how it looks it actually looks better than I expected it to look. It’s neater than a diary would be when you’re younger but I wanted it to look neat and thought out because I think when you’re younger you don’t nesessarily think about where to lay things out.

I then started to make the cover to the book using a cardboard envelope and an old duvet cover that I had when I was younger, it may even have come on some of these holidays with me! I wanted to make it out of material that I still owned to make it even more personal to the reader. The pages and the cover didn't stick as well as I would have liked but the book was one at the end of the project which I'm happy about and for my final attempt of making a book after not many attempts before I'm over the moon with it.