 In this video, we'll be using a Japanese binding method to bind our own custom book. Binding your own book is a great way to create something unique to your own specific needs. These blank books can be used to take notes, draw, plan out your week, write music, or create cooking recipes. The possibilities of what you could fill a blank book up with is virtually endless. Let's get started. For the book I'll be making in this tutorial, I'll be using some common household items. Two sheets of 8.5x11 cardstock. Thirty sheets of 8.5x11 computer printer paper. A scrap piece of cardboard. Binder clip. Thumb tack. An embroidery needle. Wax dental floss. Scissors. And a pencil. Some optional materials include a self-healing cutting mat, waxed linen thread or embroidery thread to substitute the dental floss, and an X-Acto blade or box cutter to customize the size of your book. First, decide how big you'd like your book to be. Use your ruler and pencil to mark down those dimensions. Once you have your paper measured to your desired dimensions, use your ruler, cutting mat, and X-Acto blade to cut them down. Remember on your cutting mat and make sure your blade is perpendicular to your paper and cutting surface. Cut toward you with one smooth pull. Cut a few sheets at a time. For the book I'll be making today, I won't be doing any cutting. Start by taking one of the sheets of paper from the book and draw a line one inch in from the top side of the page. Now, fold the paper in half three times. Unfold the sheet of paper and draw an X at every other intersecting line, starting from one end. This will be your whole template. Place a sheet of cardstock under the template and use the binder clip to hold the sheets in place. Place your piece of cardboard under your cover sheet and use your thumbtack to poke holes through the X's. You can now use your cover sheet as a template to poke holes through the rest of your pages. Take about 10 sheets of paper at a time so that your thumbtack goes through with little resistance. You can now use the embroidery needle to make the holes a bit bigger. This will make the binding process much easier. Repeat this process by adding a few more sheets of paper to your clip to pages. Tap the pages together on a flat surface so that they are flush on all sides. Add the rest of the paper along with the back cover sheet to the pages you poked holes through already. Poke holes through the rest of the book and run the needle through all the pages. Now, we're ready to bind the book together. Take your dental floss, or whatever thread you'd like, and measure about 5 times the height of the book. If you cut the pages of your book down earlier to a smaller size, it's best to overestimate with 6 to 7 times the height of the book. Run one end of your thread through your needle. Find the halfway point of your book and insert the needle into the second hole from the right, going up through to the front of your book. Leave about 5 inches of thread inside your book and tuck it in toward the middle. Insert your needle through the same hole, but at the back of your book so that your thread wraps around the spine. Now, insert your needle to that next hole on the right, then back through so that your thread wraps around the spine. Go through that same hole again, but this time wrap the thread around the right side of the book. Bind the rest of your book following this pattern. If you're having trouble pushing your needle through the book, you can always use your work surface to help push it through. Work your way through to the left side of your book. You should have two gaps between two holes at the top of your book and the back. We'll leave our way back through to connect those holes. Before you go through the final hole, unclip your book, then find the page where the beginning of your thread is. Carefully push your needle through that last hole. Now you can tie a knot to finish your binding. If your binding feels a bit loose, tug on the thread before making your knot to make sure your book is bound securely. Let's take a look at what some other people made using this technique. Hey, this is Gabe with the Mobile Studio. So here's my Japanese bound notebook, and I'm using it to create a series of collages. I cut out all these old images from magazines, and it's got some colored paper, and so I've started putting them together to create different images. It's all still kind of a work in progress, but I'm having a lot of fun doing it. So that's my example. Hi, I'm Emily, and this is my homemade notebook. I didn't have any cardboard, so I used watercolor paper for the binding instead, and that let me decorate it with this really cool painting. I also put a pocket on the inside of mine to store notes or scraps of paper, or in my case, sheets of stickers. There are a lot of things you can do with a notebook, but I think I'm going to make a comic book out of mine. Hey, makers, this is Courtney with my handmade book. I'm really excited about it. I already started using it for some notes. For the covers, I used some scrap construction paper. I have some marker marks all over it and some dental floss. I'm excited to keep using it and excited to see what you guys come up with. I work at the Michelle Obama Neighborhood Library, and I use the Japanese book binding technique to make myself a doodle book. I used a scratch piece of paper on the front just to jazz it up a little bit, and then I used just plain paper and lined paper at different lengths, and I've just been using it to, yeah, so can't wait to see what you guys come up with. It's exciting to see all the really cool things people can do with these books. What would you use yours for? Leave a comment down below. I'll most likely use mine for drawing and taking notes. I'm Richard, and thanks for joining me today on Make Time. Stay tuned for more content.