Gift Guide: Top  5  6 DIY Books

An affordable alternative to covetable gifts is DIY books. They make thoughtful gifts or can provide helpful tutorials for making badassmotherfucker gifts. 

1. Make a Zine! When Words and Graphics Collide! by Bill Brent and Joe Biel the most thorough resource for starting a zine. From where to buy materials, zine design, financial advice, promotion, and copyright. 

2. Hand Bookbinding: A Manual of Instruction by Aldren A. Watson clear, concise instructions on traditional bookbinding and techniques.

3. Re-Bound: Creating Handmade Books from Recycled and Repurposed Materials by Jeannine Stein exactly as the title states. Make pretty funky books with lots of pictures in the instructions.

4. The Penland Book of Handmade Books: Master Classes in Bookmaking Techniques by Lark Books make super fancy, intricate books for your friends with tips and secrets of previous Penland instructors. 

5. The Complete Book of Papermaking by Josep Asuncion everything you’ve wanted to know about paper. The history of paper, characteristics of paper, materials and tools for papermaking, and a step by step guide to making paper. The book even includes samples of papers for a comparative study. 

6. Origami Odyssey: A Journey to the Edge of Paperfolding (with DVD) by Peter Engel the folds are a bit intense, but this book includes some really innovative origami designs. 

I couldn’t cap it at 5.