Cabinet Card Hand Bound Book

When I am in want of vintage ephemera, cabinet cards, or postcards, I am fortunate enough to have a local antique shop that satisfies all of my needs. On a recent visit, I happened upon two stately gentlemen on cabinet cards and purchased them without a project in mind. They proved purposeful a few weeks later as covers for a hand bound book. 

Book binding is a completely new experience for me. It is a fascinating art, and a difficult one. Hand cutting forty-four same-sized sheets of pages AND rounding eighty-eight corners ain't no joke! I did not have proper waxed linen thread for binding the book together so I separated the threads of an unknown mega strong thread I had in the stash (37 million yards of it. It took eons and tangled like Rapunzel's hair, but I told myself using stash was better than spending $2 on proper thread. eye roll).  Did I mention having to wax this 37 million yards of thread? 

The back is just as handsome, but the mustachioed gentleman won out for the front cover.

The book was made for a self-proclaimed geek so I typed a few of her favorite quotes on a couple of signatures. 

There are five or six quotes in the book but the rest are blank pages for her own use. Making a book like this was completely new to me but it was satisfying to see I could mostly do it. I might even make another. After spending the $2 on linen thread, of course.