Artist's Bookmaking Week 7: Boxmaking

Last week in my Artist's Bookmaking class we made three different kinds of boxes. From left to right:

• a cardboard tray from a single sheet of cardboard,
• a cardboard clamshell, also from a single sheet, and
• a tray from book board, covered in bookcloth.

The first box was pretty easy; we made our measurements, scored with cardboard with a bone folder, folded it up and glued. We pulled the corrugation from the tabs at the end of each corner so that the corners glued up neatly. The second was more difficult for me and I had to make a couple of attempts, and I still wasn't happy with the results. It was more of a pizza-box design and required more measuring and cutting.

The third was similar to the first but we used five pieces of book board and the pieces were glued together instead of folded. It wasn't too difficult to get the measurements right but the trick was covering it; since we're doing everything in class, we often don't have time to let things dry properly and flipping a box around and manipulating fabric over it is difficult when it's still wet from the glue. But I managed! Actually if I showed you the other side you'd see it's pretty messy; I had some glue-control issues!

Tonight we're going to continue to work on our book-board boxes and make a more elaborate structure out of them. It's our last class, so next week I'll show you the completed box and also some pictures of my personal project. I can't believe it's almost over- it's been so fun having this class to go to every Thursday. I'm going to miss it!