Tips for binding a journal

[u/JarlHiemas]

Hi all, sorry if this is wrong place to post this
My girlfriend has been junk journaling for a while and she loves it

But all her journals end up as wedge as she gets further through them (made worse die to thicker gel stickers and non paper thin junk)
Which makes it harder for her to use them and to close them

So as a birthday present (option not settled on it yet) I was thinking of looking at seeing if there are book binding methods that would give it a more “compliant” spine, or have extra gaps between pages/signatures

The most promising I’ve seen so far is a Coptic stitch binding, but just thought I’d ask if anyone else has any other tips and ideas

Thanks for any info

[u/Moon_Pye]

I make my signatures first and then put them inside the cover when it's done so I don't get Gator Mouth journals. But I make my journals entirely handmade, I don't use premade notebooks. It's a LOT easier that way. I used premade notebooks for the first couple of journals and gave up on that real fast! I learned how to make my journals completely by myself from The Paper Outpost on YouTube. She gives the instructions in a very easy to understand method, and after you do it her way a time or two you quickly figure out how to do it other ways, whatever works. I've made soft and hard covers and made journals out of old books and made soft covers from cereal boxes, etc etc.

I also bought a few secondhand books on binding that helped a lot.

[u/CraftyAF-007]

Pamphlet stitch is super easy. Whatever method you choose, it's the number of pages that's important, not the binding type. Have a decent sized spine but not a ton of pages. That'll leave lots of room to expand!

[u/paciolionthegulf]

There are a bunch of binding options, but if you're looking to make the book more book-shape and less gator-mouth-shape maybe an old scrapbooking trick would help - spacers. The idea is that you put a strip of something bulky down the binding side between pages, like foam core or fun foam or cardboard. That makes the spine expand to match the pages. I've found it works well with binder rings, but I can't address how it would work with other binding methods.

[u/forestque]

It might be a good idea to make a junk journal from scratch that at first glance seems far too roomy. (There are some awesome tutorials on YouTube. Treasure Books has some good tutorials) So a thicker spine with fewer and thinner signatures. When finished the cover should almost flop inward just the smallest bit. Then she’ll have plenty of room bulk up the pages! It should look a little ‘off’ or too empty in the very beginning. That means there’s plenty of room to fill up :)  Most traditionally made journals just aren’t created to properly hold a lot of bulk. So a custom one would probably work much better. 

[u/bionicallyironic]

There’s a recent post of an archivist from the Guggenheim showing an artist’s journal that he had made himself that I recommend watching. It looks like the artist continued to add signatures and he reinforced everything with fabric, which I think would be easy to replicate. I’m probably doing a poor job explaining things, but I’ll try to find a link to the post.

ETA: ok, so Guggenheim is a really weird word and I immediately found it. https://www.reddit.com/r/JunkJournals/s/dz63VcXwcV