Sketchbook Making

I love Ruddocks, don't get me wrong. They have every single thing an artist could need and then some.. but I simply can't attach myself to their sketchbooks because they're so boring and uniform. Admittedly this is becoming a bit of a healthy addiction but I simply can't stop making sketchbooks! Created one for myself the other day, my first time using a coptic bind since my 'A Day in the News' project, and it went surprisingly well.

The cover was the simplest part to create (aside from making the signatures of paper inside...), using a piece of mountboard and a floral pattern for the cover itself, tightly glued and flattened with my laptop - anything heavy will do - to make sure it was an even covering.

Adding the inside cover cleaned up the slightly uneven edges on the inside, as well as complimenting the colours of the front... as well as being one of my favourite colours so I couldn't resist adding this in here.

The biggest dilemma was choosing which colour to bind the book, since all of these complimented the cover.. until I remembered I chose the purple for this because it matched the inside cover.

The holes for binding were created using an awl (more aptly called 'the pokey tool', in fact) and were about as even as I could get them...

Magic happened, some difficult binding happened, lots of painful finger jabbing with a needle happened, a couple of knots in the binding happened.... but I now have a lovely sketchbook which I am super proud of!