Making A Book Questions

[Craftsy]

I am going to make a small book for my brother full of recipes and helpful tips. As I have never done this before I have a few questions.

Firstly for pages can I half a regular sized piece of paper?

What kind of paper/ card is best for the pages? I am thinking of using 5 sheets of paper folded to make 20 pages.

What should be used for the cover?

I am adding tags and items in the book so it will be quite thick, is it best to decorate the pages before or after binding?

[Zephyr Snuggles]

1) You can halve a regular sized piece of paper if you like, if it's the size that you'd like.
Some will tell you to worry about the grain of the paper but I'm not too fussed, perhaps it won't last as long as others but it'll work just fine.

2) Something not too thick would work best for the pages, especially considering that you're a beginner (as in you might like to avoid heavy drawing paper or watercolour paper).
Slightly heavier than normal printer paper? Whatever works best for you.

3) It depends on what kind of cover that you want, hard/soft/etc. I haven't used it before but I hear chipboard is popular for hard covers, and I've also just used scrapbook paper as a cover for a journal that I wanted soft. You could even use cardboard, bought or recycled, got any old notebooks from school or anything? I tend to tear their cardboard backing off for use in this kind of situation. It works well because they're stiff enough, but still flexible.
It doesn't really matter what it looks like, because you can cover it up with paint and paper or fabric, etc.

4) I'd recommend decorating the pages after binding, it could make putting them all together very difficult, I'd imagine. If you'll be adding a lot then I'd recommend going for a bookbinding stitch that allows for growth, coptic?

Hope this helps in some way, though I'm new to it myself.