Menu
Using a thermal binding system that holds single sheets of relatively absorbent paper together at the spine with hot glue, this book was made with a small, inexpensive, desktop thermal binding system by Unibind called PhotoBook Creator. The binder holds the pages upright in a PhotoBook cover while applying heat that melts a layer of glue embedded in the book cover’s spine. The glue fuses the edges of the loose sheets to the cover spine. An introductory kit includes the binding machine, three hard covers and software to create page layouts for approximately $100.
Although you are limited in the dimensions and materials of the covers, you can choose the thickness of the spine to accommodate varying numbers of pages and can use the paper of your choice including pages that have already been completed with image and text.
To make Failed Rose, two sprays of rose-like gentian were scanned and manipulated in Photoshop, printed on a light brown paper and the prints enhanced with colored pencils and pastels. With pen and gold acrylic ink an Emily Dickinson poem, from which the book takes its title, was written around the image edges.
Wishing to hurry spring, I scanned two sprays of rose-like gentian, covering them with a dark cloth. I manipulated the scans in Photoshop, printed them on a light brown paper and enhanced the colors with colored pencils and pastels. With pen and gold acrylic ink I added Emily Dickinson’s poem, writing around the image edges:
God made a little Gentian
It tried to be a Rose
And failed
And all the Summer laughed.
But just before the Snows
There rose a Purple Creature
That ravished all the Hill
And Summer hid her Forehead
And Mockery was still.
In Photoshop the title of the book was added to one of the flower images and printed onto the same paper as the pages. The excess paper was cut away and the title glued to the lower right corner of the black linen cover with gel medium. A tacking iron ensured the edges were well adhered. Gold-leaf enhanced the title and a ribbon glued around the book, with it’s edges slipped under the endpapers, added dimensionality.
To bind the pages into the cover, the binder was preheated, the pages collated, aligned, and placed tightly against the glue impregnated spine inside the cover. The book was placed spine down into the binder for 90 seconds for the heat to melt the glue embedded in the spine.
It’s a simple, easy way to make a book, and, by placing the book in the heated binder to soften the glue, pages can be added or substituted.
Dorothy Simpson Krause • 800 Lakeside Circle #605, Pompano Beach, FL 33060 • 781 424 5276 • DotKrause@DotKrause.com