If you’re new to making handmade books, please don’t spend a fortune on new tools and equipment. Here are my 10 tips for creating handmade books on a budget:
1. Use What You Have
Chances are you already create in another medium, so in the early stages of making books, allow the supplies and tools you have on hand to do double duty. I bet if you raid your closet, you’ll find some of the following items:
- a self-healing cutting mat
- a craft and utility knife
- a steel ruler
- sharp scissors
- triangle or quilting ruler
- needles
2. Creative Covers
Although book board isn’t super expensive, it’s heavy, and shipping costs can add up. So, make friends with your local picture framer or an artist who cuts their own mats and ask for the mat board offcuts to use as book covers. Alternatively, find items to upcycle into book covers, including old textiles and vintage book covers, or rip apart an old three-ring binder and use the boards within.
3. Inexpensive Brushes
Skip the expensive bookbinders’ glue brushes and purchase several sizes of $1 chip brushes from your local hardware store. Or check out the kids’ section of your craft store and buy those chunky primary-colored paint brushes; their sturdy bristles are great for spreading glue.
4. Coupons
Use the weekly 40% off coupon offered by the big box craft stores to buy pads of Strathmore and Canson sketch, drawing, and watercolor paper for your book pages. They also have regular sales on paper, so keep your eyes open. If you download the store app to your phone, you’ll always have access to the coupons—no clipping or leaving them at home.
5. Book Cloth
Pre-made book cloth can be very expensive, at $10–20 per yard. Instead, raid your or a friend’s quilting fabric stash to make your own book cloth.
Check out this DIY Book Cloth Tutorial.
6. Book Press
Attach thick cardboard (the kind you find on the back of paper pads) onto two pieces of wood larger than your average-sized book. Then wrap several house bricks with paper or fabric, place your wet book project between the boards, and weigh it down with the bricks.
7. Thread
Waxed linen thread is expensive (approx. $17 a spool), but it’s the best choice for making books, so in the beginning of your bookmaking adventures, buy just one spool in a neutral color, such as white, cream, beige, or black. Alternatively, there are several Etsy sellers who offer smaller quantities of linen thread, so you can have a variety of colors for your projects.
8. Back-to-School Sales
Stock up on mechanical pencils, white erasers, metal rulers, and triangles during back-to-school sales.
9. Punching Cradle
Instead of purchasing a wooden punching cradle to create the sewing holes in your signatures, simply open up a large catalog or phone book to the center and place your item in the middle. Or check out this DIY Punching Cradle Tutorial made from scrap cardboard.
10. Invest in two Tools
If you have the funds, I’d suggest investing in just these tools:
1. A bone folder for creasing signatures, scoring lines, and smoothing out glued surfaces.
Buying Recommendation: Teflon Bone Folder
Budget Option: Plastic Bone Folder
2. A bookbinder’s awl for piercing holes in paper signatures and book boards before sewing. When buying an awl, choose one with a straight metal shaft to create uniform-sized holes. If you buy one with a tapered shaft, the size of your sewing holes will be uneven.
Buying Recommendation: Bookbinders Awl with Brass Chuck
Budget Option: Light Duty Paper Awl
Hopefully, these 10 tips will help you create handmade books on a budget. Sign up for my newsletter, and follow me on YouTube for tons of free content and tutorials.
Please join the conversation and leave your ideas in the comments below!
Great tips, thanks. I wrapped bricks with cloth and use them as weights.
I go to my local library’s annual book sale and buy up the large format children’s books on the last day of the sale – the books sometimes are free, or for a small flat fee I can buy a bag/box full.
I peel the cover off to get at the book boards. The large format can give me 2 covers if I cut it in half or even more for smaller projects.
As much as I hate to tear up a book, the library will take the unsold books to the dump the next day for disposal!
I do the same thing! 😀
Thank you. Very useful tips! It was interesting to read about the awl. Indeed, it is important to find a non-conical sharp awl.
Great tips. I’m just starting my journey into the world of book binding and it can be a little confusing with all the new terms. You explain things perfectly and provide great tips. Thank you.
I work at our local library, and have access to withdrawn books. I have taken a crash course in book repair, but creating my own is something I would like to spend more time doing. I’m an author, so combining my written words with book creation could result in some interesting projects.
I am a textile artist and was looking for an easy way to create books for holding my samples of Felting, shibori and silk painted samples for my workshops. Thank you for sharing your book making talents. I can’t wait to try!
You’re very welcome Vicky. I would love to see the books that you make!
Actually, waxed linen thread is not always the best choice. Here in TX, we have found untaxed is better. Waxed linen can leave greasy spots in your books, from heat. So we only use unwaxed linen thread. Even mailing a book somewhere cooler can cause melting, in a hot mailbox or mail truck.
Thanks for the tip Carlos.
For book boards (and hinges), I recycle cardboard from cereal and rice boxes, as well as from new calendars (they usually have a large piece of cardboard to keep them flat) and any other cardboard that is thick enough. (Hey, I try to upcycle what I can.) If I need a really stiff book, I simply glue pieces of cardboard together, but usually after I’ve finished covering them, they’re stiff enough. This may be because I use sample wallpaper sheets for covers, end papers, and spines, which help reinforce the book.
I make both open and closed spine books, some with hinges and some without. Regardless, all the binding is on the OUTSIDE of the spine, which makes for a very rustic look. This method is simpler than sewing all the signatures together; plus, you can use a decorative cord, string, yarn, ribbon, whatever for binding and it really pops.
I bought a book years ago called “Handcrafted Journals, Albums, Scrapbooks, and More” by Marie Browning. It’s where I get much of my inspiration for bookmaking.
When I taught bookbinding to high school students, I couldn’t afford to purchase enough awls for everyone, so I made my own with sharp tapestry needles and corks! I like these better than the store bought awls because I can make a smaller, finer hole for sewing.