Piano Hinge Binding by Leila Russon

Materials:
12 x 12 sheets of scrapbook paper cut in half to 6 x 12
bamboo skewers

wax thread

Directions:
First cut 12 x 12 scrapbook paper in half to measure 6 x 12. Fold each piece in half to measure 6 x 6 folio.

Then, make a template, the same size as your paper (6 x 12) and measure 1/2 inch marks down the center. At each mark, cut 3/4 inch slits in the paper horizontally. Once that is done, use the template to cut all of the folios the same way.

Next, you are ready to start binding the folios with the bamboo skewers. Fold the each folio in half, and bend each odd tab opposite of the even tabs and take 2 of your pages and one bamboo skewer. I started from the back, but you can start from either direction. Run the skewer through the first notch in the first page and through the second notch in the second page. Then through the third notch in the first page and the fourth notch in the second page, and so on until you are all the way down the spine. So you are going in every other notch on each piece of paper.

Connect the next pages together by starting a new skewer going through the first notch on the second page and the second notch on the third page.

Continue in this until you have all the pages connected. You will have empty tabs on both the front and back of the book. So to make a cover, use the same template you did as before and cut slits down a 12 x 6 piece of paper (make two, one for the front and one for the back), but this time only cut the slits 1/4 of an inch across each one instead of 3/4 inch.

Once that is finished, you're almost done! just weave the skewer through the extra tabs on the textblock and weave the cover (using the opposite tabs on the spine and the other ones just pushed to the inside of the cover paper) on to the skewer.

After that is done, you will have the cover paper just looped around the skewer, so you need to glue the to sides around the skewer together. But remember! don't put glue on the skewer itself! you want the skekers to be able to slide in and out of the textblock.

To finish, once both covers are on and glued, cut the skewers to the length you want (i left about a quarter of an inch on either side) and tie them off with wax thread bye weaving through the skewers and making them tight.

And your done!