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Rubber Road
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Beaded Spine Long Stitched Book
Jennifer Caputo
This book can be made any size. To keep the cutting to a minimum I made
Supplies
Instructions 1. Begin by folding your signatures. Signatures are simply nested pieces of paper folded in half. They are sewn through the fold crease. I used 3 signatures of 5 pieces of 8.5 x 11 paper each so I needed 15 sheets of text weight 8.5x11 paper. You can make them whatever size you want, make sure you have an odd number of signatures though. 2.
Fold each piece of paper in half, then nest them in groups of 5. You may find
that your edges don’t all line up. Stack them as even as possible and trim them
with a paper cutter if you like. Trimming with deckle edge scissors is a fun
alternative as well. 3.
Once you have all of your signatures nested stack them all up and measure the
height of the spine. Mine measures 1/2". This measurement tells me how big I
need the spine of my book to be – add 1/4” to the height of the signatures
meaning if you’ve done everything just like me so far you will need a spine 3/4”
wide. 4.
Cut your bookboard. The front and back cover should be 1/4” taller and wider
than your folded signature, your spine should be the height of the book plus the
width that you got in the step above. If you did things like me your front and
back cover should be 5.75” x 8.75” and your spine is .75” x 8.75”. (If you
can’t find book board you can use matte board or any other type of thick
cardboard. You can often go to a frame store and see if they will give or sell
you scraps of their matte board that they would otherwise discard). 5.
Now we’re going to make a tool that we will use for all the rest of our
measurements. Cut a piece of copy paper the exact size as your spine (.75” x
8.75”). Fold it in half lengthwise (so now it’s 3/8” x 8.75”) and then once
more (so now it’s 3/16” x 8.75”) If you used more than 3 signatures you will
need to keep folding – we are basically trying to get the same number of fold
lines as we have signatures so we know how to equally space them on our book. 6. Take your spine and place your new tool over it, mark each crease on the spine and use a ruler to draw lines down the spine – you will have 3 equally spaced lines as shown. 7. Back to our measuring tool. Fold it half width wise now (.75” x 4 3/8”). Repeat two more times. When you unfold you should have 8 segments and 7 crease lines. Color each crease line to make it stand out. We’re going to use all of the crease lines except the middle one so X it out and number the other 6. Everywhere 2 lines intersect is where we will punch a hole for our binding.
9. Punch holes in your spine piece everywhere the lines intersect with a 1/8” hole punch (I used a Japanese Screw Punch to easily punch through the bookboard). 10.
Now we need to cover our bookboards. The problem is, a sheet of 12x12 paper
isn’t big enough to cover the entire book. I used 2 pieces of 11.
Use a ruler to line up your boards on the paper as shown above leaving a 1/8”
gap between the spine and the covers. Apply the Neutral PH or PVA Glue to the
bookboards with the foam brush to adhere the boards to the paper. 12. Miter the corners of the excess cardstock and also cut notches at the spine. Use a bone folder to trace the edges of the bookboard so you can easily fold up the edges and glue them down. 13. Glue up all your edges! 14.
Cut a liner about 1/4" less than the total size of your book and glue in place.
Use your bone folder to crease the paper into the hinges well and
15. Back to our measuring tool! Fold the measuring tool in half and use an awl to poke holes in the middle row of intersections. Open up one of your signatures and nest the tool in the crease. Use an awl and poke through the signatures at each hole. Repeat for each signature. 16.
Now the fun part! We get to bind the book! Thread your binders 17. Open up your first signature, with the holes numbered from right to left guide your needle through hole 2 from the inside of the signature to the outside, pull thread until about 3-4” remains inside. 18. Lay the signature into your binding and pull the thread through hole #2 on the book as well keeping the tail on the inside of the book. Thread on a few beads and then draw your needle into hole 1 on both the binding and the signature. 19. Once the thread is back on the inside of the book pull taut. Tie a knot at station 2 on the inside of the signature. Make sure it is very tight and exactly at the hole. 20. Ok, our thread is secure so let’s keep going! Go back to the outside of the book through hole 3 – remember to go through both the signature hole and spine hole. Thread on some more beads and go back in through hole 4. Pull taut! 21. Come back to outside of the book through hole 5, a few more beads and then back in through hole 6. Yay!!! Our first signature is in! The inside of the book should look like the picture above. OK, time to get our second signature in! 22. To attach the second signature we draw our needle back through Hole 5, at the same time you need to enter Hole 5 of the second signature. Pull taut! Are you getting the hang of it yet? 23. Draw your needle through Hole 6 of the second signature and of the second row of holes in the spine. Pick up some beads and back in through Hole 5. 24.
Now we just keep going like this! 25. Almost done! All that’s left to do is tie the final knot. You came in hole 6 so now just tie the knot at hole 5 and you’re done! 26. Your finished book should look something like the one at right. 27. Stamp Art definition on white cardstock with purple ink. Tear bottom leaving plenty of room for beaded wire embellishment. 28. Thread some beads that match your spine onto purple wire, curl the ends and attach to the white cardstock by cutting little pieces of wire, folding them in half, and poking them through the paper around the piece, spread apart in the back like a brad and secure with red liner tape. Matte title piece on green textured cardstock and adhere to the cover of your book with the red liner tape. All done! If you would like to print this technique including photos of all the steps, click here. Once you've saved or printed the technique sheet, use your browser's back button to return.
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my inside pages 5.5” x 8.5” meaning I just had to fold a normal sheet of paper
in half. I will give measurements but will also note how to modify the sizes to
accommodate whatever size book you want to make.
8.
Line up your measuring tool along one of the lines you drew on your spine piece
– mark everywhere you have numbered a spot and repeat for the other 2 lines. 
6” x 10.5” patterned paper and one piece of 2.5” x 10.5” textured cardstock. I
overlapped them a 1/2" at each seam to get one large sheet of 13.5” x 10.5”
sheet of paper. 
repunch
holes. 
needle with your thread (I prefer waxed nylon or linen thread – it’s pretty
inexpensive and worth the cost over unwaxed – the wax keeps the thread gliding
and prevents it from getting tangled. Waxed nylon thread can be found in lots
of fun colors!) 
