Okay, I admit it. I'm a bit obsessed at the moment with making books. The pile of completed ones is only matched by the works-in-progress. So I thought I'd blog about how to make a couple of 'em. One is the lay-flat book and the other is the tag book. (I wondered whether to use 'tag' or 'label', so I'm sticking with tag as that's the term most often used on instructional craft videos I've watched.)
I'm a newcomer to papercraft, art journaling and collage, so I've not come across the idea of decorating tags before. Most craft videos I've watched use pre-made tags, ones purchased from a craft supplier or the ubiquitous Amazon. But some crafters have shared ideas for making your own.
Here are a few ideas for making tags:
- glue book pages together. I know it seems like sacrilege to tear up a book, but sometimes they're old, unloved, too tatty to give to charity and at least this way avoids lobbing them into the bin. You can glue two or more pages together, and then cut it into the size and shape required.
- use a junk mail envelope. Glue the flap shut, then cut to tag size.
- use brown packaging paper, the sort that comes scrunched up in a box with your online order. You could leave the paper plain before cutting it, or paint/print on it prior to cutting out.
- use a piece of fabric. Glue the fabric to a thin piece of card, then cut to size.
- use vintage postcards, birthday and Christmas cards, even old black & white photographs of long dead relatives that nobody recognises any more! Or maybe you've bought photos from a car boot sale and they're someone else's long dead relatives ...
If you make your own tags they can be as large or small as you want. Oh, here's a handy hint: if you want to uniformly cut off the corners of your tag, and don't have a specific punch to do that, then find an unwanted plastic card - like a credit card or store loyalty card - and snip off a corner. This diagonal cut can be used as your template when you need to trim your tag to size.
Right, let's start with my (hopefully) simple instructions for making a couple of straightforward books.
The Long Skinny Book:
This is a book that you could make in any size. Square, rectangular, a long skinny book, a stumpy fat one. I've used thin black card and decorated the inner pages. But you could leave the inside pages blank, making them out of sketchpaper, watercolour or mixed media paper for whatever needs you have. This could be your art journal, but it could equally well be used for scribbling down shopping lists or written reminders.
How I made this particular long, skinny book:
I upcycled some tatty thin card which came complete with scribbles and marks from where sellotape had been stuck to it. Using my nifty paper cutter, I cut the pieces to size, approx 5 and a half inches x 3 inches.
I'd have left the inner pages of the book blank if the card had been in better condition, but decided to add some Gelli prints to disguise the scruffy bits.
I cut and pasted, making inroads into my mountain of printed paper, adding colour and pattern to both sides of the card.
The spine of my book was going to be along the 3 inch edge. So I cut several strips of black card 3 inches long x 1 inch wide. I made a fold line lengthways down the middle of the strip. Then slathered glue over the side of the strip facing me before placing it glue side down along the top edge of one page and the top edge of the page that's going to be facing it. The fold line going where the spine of your book will be.
As in the photo below, your two pages are now joined together.
Keep pairing up pages in the same fashion. When they're all paired up, use more strips to attach one pair to another until you've joined the entire book up together.
(I know this explanation isn't as clear as it could be, but honestly! I've re-written it so many times to try and clarify the steps you take. I think I'll try assembling another book in the same way and take a lot more photos of the process and use contrasting colour pages and strips so it's easier to see what I mean. I'll add that to another day's blog post for anyone who needs it.)
Incidentally, you could substitute double sided sellotape for a glue stick, or even PVA glue if you don't mind the longer drying time that takes.
Here's the book opened out, showing two pages joined by a black strip of card. If I flipped over the page you'd see a different colourway, but again the two pages would be joined in the same way.
I aim to stencil and print over these pages, embellishing them as the mood takes me.
Above is a photo of the book laid out flat, with the blue back cover and the red front cover. I added a ribbon, using a glue stick to attach the ribbon to the front and back covers of my book, and further securing it by pasting strips of paper over it in a few places.
Well, that's the long, skinny book made. The tag book is a variation on this method, and I'll do my best to describe this too.
The Tag Book:
I've used pages that're the shape of tags (a.k.a. luggage labels) but you could equally well make this from a straightforward square or rectangle.
I started off by cutting tags out of thin white card, taken from a pad of decorative card bought from a charity shop. I wanted to use the blank side of the card, ignoring the patterned side which was going to be hidden away.
The tags are basically rectangles, about 6 inches x 3 inches. I then cut off the top corners of each rectangle and hole punched them to form a tag shape. After that I added some of my own decoration to the blank side of each card.
The photo above shows the 'wrong' side of the tags. I've laid them side by side (not including the two tags set aside for the front and back covers). Then I've glued on 5 and a 1/2 inch lengths of paper (similar to the strips in the long, skinny book) to join them all together. Adding masking tape here and there to ensure everything stays firmly in place. Make sure your glue's firmly dried. Now, you're going to fold up and glue your long, snaking line of tags. With the wrong side of the first tag uppermost - facing you - spread glue over the wrong side of the next two tags and stick them together. Repeat with the rest of the tags, leaving one tag at the end with it's wrong side still showing. That's going to form the inner back cover.
(In my book, I used 12 tags in all, which included one for the front cover, one for the back cover.)
Take the two tags you've kept aside for the front and back covers, ready to glue those into place.
Here's the book just before the covers are added. I applied a piece of masking tape to the outer spine, just to strengthen it and doubly-ensure no pages can loose.
Here's the book with the covers stuck on. Once I'd applied the glue, I laid the entire thing underneath a particularly heavy stack of gardening books, letting all the glue dry completely. I might add a ribbon to cover the book's spine, not sure yet. Maybe add a ribbon as a fastening too, similar to the long, skinny book.
Some of the inner pages above and below.
I really hope my instructions are understandable. It's so flipping difficult to write them, but I will persevere as the only way to get better at it is to try, try and try again!
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