Wanting To Make A Tooled Photo Album - Help? :)

[ranchmom77]

I have been browsing and searching through this site looking for some "how-to's" for constructing a tooled photo album but I'm not having much luck, although I've seen plenty of absolutely stunning inspiration pieces! Wow. Anyways, I've been tooling other items for a year now.. mostly chink yolks, sideplates, and bronc nose bands so I know how to do that but I'm having trouble understanding or figuring out the basic construction of an album.

Is there someone willing to lay out a step by step "how to" for me? Or maybe direct me to a website or reading material that can help me out? Should I read up on bookbinding as a foundation for this sort of thing? lol Really clueless how to start.

Something along the lines of this: http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=47401 Stunning!! I'd like to make it from scratch as opposed to covering an already constructed album.

I'd also like to make a leather pad folio type of thing once I finish the album.. or maybe alongside it. I usually have a few projects going at once. Any good resources for those? What are those actually called anyways? I've done searches for leather notebook covers, leather folios, leather portfolios, leather legal pad holder.. etc.. lol

What I'm talking about is a tooled front and back then opened up to a big legal pad on the right side and a bunch of pockets, pen holders, etc on the left hand side.. maybe closed with a zipper, leather latch, or magnetic lock of some sort.

I know everyone is busy but I'd sure appreciate a nudge in the right direction.. or even a shove if you're so inclined.

Thanks!

Jamie

[Stephenpuhakish]

Have you thought of making a scrapbook style instead? Many different page sizes, layouts etc are available, and you can find posts fairly easily at places like Michaels or other craft shops. My wife has been hounding me for some time to make one for her and I recently picked up the posts for it. If you check out a few scrapbooks you'll probably see they're fairly easy to copy. If I get to it before too long I'll post a step by step of how I did it. If you beat me to it I'd love to see photos.

Regards

Stephen

[Colt W Knight]

A photoalbum isn't a difficult construction. There are a million ways to do one, but I think as beginner, you would want to stick with something simple.

1. Goto the store and purchase a basic photoalbum, ( just a cover with the photo pages) that you like the inside pages of.

2. You will want to make a leather cover you slip the photoalbum cover into.

3. Cut a single piece of leather big enough to wrap around the front and back. Make sure to give yourself enough extra that the binder will slip in after sewing.

a.tool the outside

b. dye the outside

c.If you want to get fancy, glue in a leather liner

4. cut the inside flaps for front and back cover

a. tool if desired

b. dye

c. burnish inside edges

5. Sew the two together

6. sand the perimeter flush

7. burnish the edges

8. apply edge finish

As an example, here is an appointment book I made using the same construction. Same principle would apply to a photoalbum.

I made one side shorter so it would be easier to change notebooks. For A photoalbum, I would make both sides full length.

Here is a leather portfolio I constructed.

Edited June 2, 2014 by Colt W Knight

[ranchmom77]

Those are nice Colt The Arizona one is a lot like I'm talking about for a portfolio. The front cover around the cat head.. Is the border dyed darker or is it another dark piece added to the edges? That's sharp looking! What weight leather would you reccomend? What kind of leather for a liner do you reccomend?

I'd imagine that making one from scratch could be done much the same way but adding some sort of stiff material to wrap the leather around on the front and back and adding a spine with the binder guts attached. Do you know what kind of board to use? Would cardboard be to light?

I'm definitely going to start simple with a cover type one like you suggested and we'll see how it goes. Thanks so much for replying!

Stephan, my daughter has a scrapbook.. I'm going to go have a look at it and see what I can make of it. I hadn't considered doing it like that... Thanks for th idea!