In the age of blogging, publishing at home is relatively easy — at least if you don’t mind putting your work online for everyone to see free, and freely copy at their leisure.

Yes, there are problems with online publishing, despite its popularity. But what if you want to publish serious work the old-fashioned way, in books or booklets?

You’ll have to look at some old material to find information on the craft of printing and publishing at home. One of the best books on the subject was published in 1984 in the UK by two professional people who happened to run publishing businesses from home.

The book is: Publishing & Printing at Home by Roy Lewis and John B. Easson. It’s published by David & Charles and can be bought second-hand online.

Here are the opening lines of the book:

The spare-time publisher. This book is about the craft of publishing books, booklets and periodicals in small editions from one’s own backroom or backyard. It is a leisure pursuit or an occupation for retirement that is as suited to home operations as weaving, pottery, cabinet-making, metalwork, or photography and comparable creative pastimes.

Although outdated in its technology, the book teaches invaluable skills in producing and putting together one’s own books.

Much recommended.

In the runup to Christmas and the other holidays Craftmodo is going to be running a series of projects to help you make great gifts for the festive season.

From the pictures you’ve probably guessed what this one is all about. Yes, ornamental candles will be our first running project. They make great gifts and, being hand-crafted, are appreciated by everyone.

Project 2 will be on how to make scented soaps. This is related to candlemaking in that it deals with the fashioning of a similar kind of substance. But it does require different methods and materials. Again soaps make wonderful presents.

Project 3 will expand on our earlier post about marbling paper. This is really my favourite, so we’ll be looking at how hand-marbled papers can be used in many applications, including scrapbooks and lampshades.

We’ll follow these with other projects to be announced later.

Whenever you open an older book in the library and find the paper on the inside of the cover has been “marbled”, have you ever wondered how it’s done? Probably some complex industrial process, you might guess.

But actually it isn’t. It’s a fairly simple procedure requiring only a bit of practice and a flair for creating the patterns. Here’s what you need to get started :

* Some marbling ink — obtainable from most craft outlets.
* A tray big enough to take your paper, whether letter-sized, A4, or bigger.
* Paper — not varnished or shiny.
* Some newspaper to lay out the wet sheets.
* A paintbrush, stylus, comb or feather to create the patterns in the ink.

The process is simple.

* Fill a flat-bottomed tray with about an inch of water.
* With a brush or eye-dropper put a splash of ink on the water. It will spread out quickly in widening circles.
* Drop in other colours and experiment twirling them around with a comb or stylus.
* When satisfied, place the paper carefully on the liquid surface. Wait for about one minute.
* Hold one end of the paper and draw it up and out of the liquid.
* Wash the paper under running water to dislodge excess ink.
* Place the paper on newspaper to dry.
* When completely dry leave it under a few heavy books overnight to iron out the wrinkles.

There are many variations on this craft as you can guess, and I found five or six excellent books on marbling in the local library.

This is a really interesting craft if you have an artistic temperament. Home-marbled paper is also a good conversation piece. Some artists even do this for a living, supplying printers with bulk quantities, or special commissions.