Mini Book From Found Materials
Materials & Tools
A. Basic book construction
B. Outside Collage (Front Cover)
C. Inside Collage (Pages, Center Spread)
The Steps
Click to enlarge images. Click the back button to return to this article.)
A. Basic book construction
1. The main items you'll need to make one mini-book project are one cardboard coffee sleeve and (pieces of) a brown paper grocery bag.
2. Cut pieces of the grocery bag into 2-inch by 4-inch pieces. Make 4 pieces per book.
3. Use one of the page spreads as a template. Using a pencil, lightly trace the page spread on the smooth side of the coffee sleeve.
4. Using a ruler and the pencil, draw a border around the page shape just slightly beyond the page tracing. About a 1/4-inch distance should do it, if you have the room. Now trim your book cover. You can see in the photo that I used a pair of scissors. You would get a straighter line with a metal straight edge (ruler) and a craft knife.
5. Using a bone folder for precise creasing, fold the cover and each of the grocery bag pages in half.
6. Nestle the pages together. Hold everything steady and punch four holes in the folds. Hint: Punch the pages as a group separately, then use the pages as a guide to punch the cover. You can always try the "grit-your-teeth and punch it all together" technique, but I attempted it and failed, so you've been warned. (smiles)
7. Cut a black twist tie in half then fold each piece.
8. Push one tie half into a set of adjoining holes, then twist the ends together on the back of the book spine. Repeat for the second set of holes.
Your mini-book is now assembled. Now it's time to collage on your "found art" creation.
B. Outside Collage (Front Cover)
9. Refer to the finished project pictures (top of page) for layout suggestions. Now select and tear your choice of paper scraps for collage. I chose a palette of earth tones, with beige and brown mostly.
10. Using a paint brush, apply white glue liberally to the backs of your paper scraps , then apply these scraps to the book cover randomly.
11. You can use any embellishments you like to collage on top of the paper scraps. I added a small feather, some glue and copper colored glitter.
12. I embossed a tag, cut from a piece of copper, by burnishing the design with a bone folder and a real penny. I added earth-toned fibers to the tag then tied faux tooth beads to the yarn ends. I adhered the tag to the cover with glue dots.
C. Inside Collage (Pages, Center Spread)
13. Refer to the finished project pictures (top of page) for layout suggestions. Tear some paper scraps, again! Open the book to the center page spread then collage these scraps with White glue and a paintbrush.
14. Select a few cancelled foreign postage stamps and add these to the pages with white glue. I used three stamps, each from a different country. If you can't find foreign postage stamps, you can buy them on eBay.
15. Rub the rust, brown and gold inkpads onto the pages and postage stamps, until you achieve the desired shading.
16. Using the black inkpads and rubber stamps, stamp faux cancellation marks on top of the postage.
Check back often for other versions of this project, or better yet, sign up for our newsletter and I'll include a note when I've updated this page.
Project Tips
Additional Reading
Product Resource Guide
Article Description: Millions of paper coffee sleeves are thrown away every day in local coffee shops. Save one to create a collaged handmade book.
No comments:
Post a Comment