TUTORIAL: Mini-Book Bookmark (image heavy!)

[WideEyedLife]

MINI-BOOK BOOKMARK TUTORIAL



Okay, so a while back I made a set of these bookmarks for the Bookmark Swap.  They hit my love-of-miniatures spot, so I mass-produced another set and decided to take photos of the process, for tutorial fodder, of course.



The process looks super hard, but really is simple, once you get the hang of it.  (Okay, so maybe I'm crazy.)

So, here goes!

MATERIALS NEEDED (A better idea can be gotten of these materials with a scan through the tutorial):

• Unwanted hardcover children's book, thin.
• Thin paper, for the book's cover.
• Paper, for the end-papers.
• Paper, for the book's signatures.
• Aleene's craft glue (or equivalent)
• Scissors
• Optional, but desirable: a papercutter
• Binder clip
• Push pin
• Sturdy sharp Needle
• Sturdy thread
• Ribbon, same width as the spine of the children's book.
• Ribbon, thinner, for the mini-book's bookmark.

STEPS:

1. Cut a sufficiently thin (unwanted) children's book into mini-books.  Now, being the lazy person I am, I just couldn't help doing this with my gigantic miter saw.  (Please notice that in this photo, I used a big chunk of wood to hold the book in place during the cutting process, so as to not lose a finger to the craft gods.)  But of course this step can be done by hand with a tool like an X-acto.  (You won't need the cut-off leftovers.)








2. Separate the interior pages/end papers from the hardcover bookboard.  (You won't need these interior pages/end papers for anything more; they can be trashed or stashed.)



3. Trim the rough corners of the bookboard, if any.



4. Glue the bookboard to a new cover (thin sheet of any color paper you like).



5. Trim the new cover (as shown in photo).



6. Complete gluing/folding new cover in place.





7. Fold new cover.



8. Press the front and back covers together creating a crease.



9. Measure the depth of the mini-book cover, double that number and subtract just a touch (to make up for wanting the interior pages slightly smaller than the cover).



10. Cut a test signature (By cutting a page or several as wide as the measurement you just made, and a little shorter than the cover is tall.) and fold it in half.



11. Test your signature inside your cover and make adjustments as necessary before mass-producing signatures in the size you want.



12. Cut the front and back end papers.  (These will be the same size as a single folded sheet of your signature pages.)



13. Poke holes in the end paper/signatures' folded edge.  (In a stack that goes: front end paper, signatures, back end paper.)  (I've anchored them together with a clip so they don't move.)





14. Sew them together. (In a stack that goes: front end paper, signatures, back end paper.)  The stitching doesn't really matter, as it won't show; the only requirement is that each hole is used and that the stitching only wrap around the folded part of the signatures (as shown in the photo).






15. Open the end papers only, creating a crease.



16. Make sure you have the following on hand for the final steps of this process:

• completed cover
• completed book signature
• ribbon the width of the spine of the book, and the length you want your bookmark ribbon to be
• two short ribbon lengths
• thinner ribbon for the mini-book's bookmark

17. Glue the long bookmark ribbon into the spine of the book.




18. Fold the two shorter lengths of ribbon in half, glue them, and paste them into the book.









19. Glue the mini bookmark into the book, on the side, as shown.





20. Verify that the mini-bookmark will be long enough to pass through the books pages.



21.  Glue the signatures into the book by pasting the end papers only.





22. Carefully close the book and make any necessary adjustments in the signature's location to allow it to close.  (I find that often just holding the book closed will cause the end papers to stretch or contort enough to make up for the slight imperfections of the construction process.)





23. Trim mini-book's bookmark to length.



24. Admire your amazing work!







   Thanks for looking!  
Any comments and criticism are welcome!

[RandiMaehym787]

these are beautiful!!!

[Audania1]

What a great idea! And how fun and personal for those book-lovers (like myself) in our lives... 

[MareMare]

Um, this is awesome! Thanks for sharing!

[kaz814]

Holy cow, this is really cool!

[hgddm]

nice tute, gotta try this!

[Jinjeet Phoenix]

This is so cool and interesting. You've really made it look so simple and easy and I know it's not. I was glued to the to do pictures. Thanks for sharing.

[ScrappySue]

may I say, your work is totally inspiring!
S

[Naantje]

I'll ask my sister-in-law if her kids have messed up any children's books with markers / by tearing pages recently. Can't ruin a perfectly good book, but sometimes, the kids can be a bit destructive. (Only a bit, mind you, they're generally angels!) This is really cool, I've pinned it!

[lightninglisa]

Wow! These are amazing! Thank you so much for the tutorial ^_^