Japanese book binding

I watched some tutorials online and thought I found the simplest way to bind a book. I'm in love with Japanese book binding and hence, the try:

These were made using scrapbits from previous projects, and I happened to have few meters of paper strings left, so I thought of giving it a go. The stitching part was the hardest, since I was too lazy to dig up my sewing box (gathering dust under the bed ha!), so I stitched the pages without using any needle. Oh yes I did. *bangs head on the wall*. On some 1/8" round holes. Stupid decision, I know, but still do-able. :P

It was a mess cutting and slicing the papers, so they ended up with some uneven pages.

I like the hard cover of my first book though, and the wrapper was actually one of my favs.

The second try was much better, but I wasn't really fond with my colour choice for the hard cover. I messed up again when I tried mod-podging the cover (need to get used to this mod-podging business!), so it came out with all the bubbles, scattered and uneven, and it didn't look very nice. :( I tried covering it up with the E alpha, but it only solved half the problem.

Remind me to find more coloured strings for the bindings, and I'll give it a try again, with much better colour coordinations. And with much better design. And sizes. Or perhaps I should use ribbons too.

The front cover looked so bare so I used the alphas that I made before to decorate on them. At least now they looked decent enough heh!