Itty Bitty Book Tutorial

I have had several people ask about my little book that I posted about here.  I originally made a little Marie book for a swap I am hosting for a swap group I belong to.  It was the example.  When I made the book I did a tutorial for the swap members to follow so all of our little books would be the same.  They are going on a necklace which I will share with you later.  Anyway since I have it already done Im going to share it with you.

This little book is 1.5” tall by 1” wide. I cut the papers as follows- Cut your first strip of scrapbook paper 1.5” wide by the length of the paper (12”).  This will be your cover and you will cut the length down to size later.

Next cut a strip of paper just a little bit smaller than the 1.50” wide cover on each side. I placed the paper against the already cut cover strip and made a pencil mark where I wanted to cut it. If you look closely you can see the pencil mark on the pink paper. The inside of the paper will not show so it doesn’t matter whats on it. You will need the whole length of 12” paper. This strip will be the inside pages of your book. Now fold the strip in half, then into quarters. You now have four sections (see picture).

Now fold each section into thirds. This part can be a little tricky. Just be sure your folds line up on the outside edge of your book pages. You wont notice it if the edge that goes against the spine is uneven.

NOTE: the first picture below shows the folds going the wrong way to be able to make your folds and line up your outside edges. This is easy to fix by just folding the paper the other way :)

The second picture is going the right way with all the folds. You will have 5 pages and a piece on each end to glue to your book cover.

Next I ran my ink pad along the edges and the folds to make it look old.

Now apply Uhu glue (or your favorite glue stick) to the back of the folded strip.  Glue all the pages together then stick one side to the inside cover of your book.  Be sure to leave that little space all around your folded piece when you attach it to your front cover.  The Uhu glue allows you to slide the paper around until you have it placed the way you want.

Now flip your book over and glue the inside page to the back cover. Make sure there is enough room for your book to close but not too much that it puffs up at the spine.  Then cut your cover paper to size leaving the little space along the edge.  You will have five pages in your little book

You now have a little book!!  Next we will glue the pages in it.

To make the inside pages I cut and pasted images onto a Open Office Document.  Open Office is like Microsoft Word but a FREE program.  You can get it here http:/www.openoffice.org/ if you dont have Word. If you have Word just use that program.  Once cut and pasted, double click on the image and click wrap through the image.  This allows you to move the image freely around on the page.  Next resize the image.  Double click image uncheck lock ratio and change the size to .95 wide by 1.40 tall.  You may have to crop the image a little to make your image proportionate prior to resizing.  If you just want to use tiny images you already have cut them out slightly smaller than your little page.  You can cut a template from plain paper and use it to measure the rest.  Here are my sheets.

I got my images from here http://www.ekduncan.com/  She shares lots of wonderful fashion plates for you to use.  Just scroll thru her blog for LOTS of images.  Once I cut out my images I used the ink around the edged like I did on the book before I glued them down.  Here is the inside of mine.

Once you have your little book put together take a large needle and insert it thru the inside page and the cover between page 3 & 4 about ¼ inch from the top.  This makes a hole for you to put your jump ring thru.

And here is my finished book.  I think I will wrap a little string or ribbon around the book a couple times and tie a bow to keep it closed.  You can also add the tie under the front cover before you glue it on.  That way it won't come off.

Let me know if you have any questions.

I hope you enjoy making this little book as much as I did.

Robin