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Many people are a bit intimidated when it comes to the idea of hand binding a book on their own but we here at Two Artsy Gals think that is a total load of crap! We are all about experiment and learning by doing and we think that you should stop being intimidated. If Katie can just walk around deciding that she knows how to do things, then so can you.

In today’s episode the gals explain how you can get started with your adventures in book binding. The first Katie walks us through the tools and supplies you will need to make your own hand-bound book/journal. Because there is quite a little list and we don’t want to make this a link heavy post, we suggest that you jot down a few notes while listening to the episode and/or get on Amazon and type “book binding tools and supplies” into the search bar. For reference here is a picture of Katie’s tools and a numbered list of what everything is.

1. Bone Folder
2. Book Board
3. Paper for signatures/pages
4. Hammer
5. Hole Punch
6. Binders Needles
7. Awl
8. Book Binding Thread
9. Bees wax (two kinds) and Embroidery Floss (totally optional)
10. Scissors for cutting thread
11. Ruler
12. X-Acto Blade
13. Utility Knife

As Katie mentioned, no one expects you to listen to this episode and know what to do! That would be insane! So here are some links to the books Sharon and Katie talked about that will not only help you with technique and logistics, but will give you so many ideas your head might explode.

Making Handmade Book: 100+ Bindings, Structures, and Forms By Alisa Golden

How to Make Books: Fold Cut and Stitch Your Way to a One-of-a-kind Book By Esther K. Smith

And because we all know it is nearly impossible to pick up a book and read instructions on how to do something creative and walk away knowing exactly what to do, here is a link to Sea Lemon’s Youtube Channel. Katie raved about her book binding videos but everything on her channels is pretty much dipped in awesome sauce. Warning, don’t look at her channel until you have time to go down the crafting rabbit hole you are going to disappear in. You might even want to set an alarm to remind yourself about things like eating and sleeping before you start watching.

As promised, here is Sea Lemon’s instructional video on doing the Coptic stitch that Katie favors.

Oh crap! We almost forgot! Here are some pictures of Katie’s journals! These first few are all Coptic bound books that Katie has sold in the past.

And these next ones are journals that Katie made for Round Robin swaps. The first is from a Super Hero Tome swap that she hosted and is also coptic bound and the second is from another Round Robin she participated in. it was bound with a long stitch and then later glued into it cover along the spine.

If you have any questions or comments about this episode, or if you just want to tell The Gals how awesome they are, send your emails to twoartsygals@gmail.com. You can subscribe to this blog up there on the right and to subscribe to the podcast you can find us on Stitcher and iTunes, or subscribe through this blogs RSS feed. Next week Sharon and Katie will be back to talk with you about Nature Crafts so make sure to come back and listen to their tales of epic crafting wins and losses, and until then, make some cool shit, yo!