AMANDA'S BASKETS: Inchie Books

Monday, April 1, 2013

Inchie Books

I hope your weekend was a wonderful celebration with family and friends...

There's a new weekly prompt up very apropos to the month: April Showers Water Favorite Flowers. This month's thought is 'Reach Out and 'Touch' Someone. Reminds me of the commercial, how about you?

I promised a tutorial on making inchie books. Here it is...

Materials:
Ruler                                                                   Scissors
Pencil                                                                  Stick glue
Tacky glue                                                          Lightweight cardboard (like cereal box)
20 weight white paper                                      Decorative paper
Optional:
Mod Podge & Brush                                          Bone Folder

Procedure:

Using a ruler (a see through ruler makes it easier to measure) cut a piece of light weight cardboard 7/8 inch by 1 & 7/8 inches. This is the template for the pages. (Note: You can cut a piece 1 inch by 2 inches and then trim off 1/8 inch on one long side and one short side.)

Fold the piece of 20 weight paper in half widethwise and then in half again. (See above image) Crease folds. Using the template, cut the pages (four at a time) beginning at the bottom of the paper and continuing upwards.

Fold the pages in half. Using stick glue, glue the pages together. Outside of one folded piece to the outside on another folded piece until all are glued together. Stick glue works best here. Liquid type glue distorts pages. One reason to glue pages together is for strength.

Glue as many 'pages' together to make the size book you want.

Spread tacky glue on the spine of the book (The folded edges that are glued together) and let dry.

To make the cover, cut a piece of cardboard (light weight) 1 inch by 3 inches. Measure one inch from one edge. Using the pencil, score the line and bend toward the line.

Place the pages in the book cover, and mark the line where the spine ends. Again score that line.

Then measure one inch from that line and cut off the remaining cardboard.

Using a piece of decorative paper, trim around the book cover.

Using stick glue, first cover the side of the cardboard which is the outside completely with glue. Place on the wrong side of the decorative paper. Now fold the decorative paper to cover the inside of the cardboard cover and glue down securely.

Finally, using tacky glue on the spine area only and stick glue on the pages, attach the pages to the cover and let dry.

Optional: Using a brush, coat the cover with Mod Podge to protect the cover. That's it. Your book is done. It's easy. It's inexpensive. And it's fun. Why not try one!

Tomorrow, I'll update on how my 2013 plans are coming along...some good and some not so great.

Thanks for visiting...

Enjoy yourself...

CRAFTING IDEAS

I am always looking for a small piece of paper to write down something which will later be disposed of. I decided to use some of the scrap paper of which I have a ton. I mostly use the paper for glueing projects. I decided to cut the paper into a small size. (Six pieces from a piece of copy paper.). But just having them sitting on my desk would get messy without a container. So, using a cardboard box, I cut it down to size and using a hot glue gun I glued the ends together. Using a picture from a magazine cut into pieces and stick craft glue, I glued the pieces to the box inside and out. I also used some decorative tape for the outside edges. And to finish the top corners which were not covered, I used straight pins with colorful tops. Looks nice and works well.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

So in looking over your habits what did you find? Some popular good habits folks have are: Meditation, exercise, journal writing, flossing, reading and walking up early. Some not so great habits included smoking, saying yes, swearing, tolerating folks, not sleeping enough, always complaining and constantly making excuses. Do you have more good habits or more bad habits? Is it time to change? If so, start with the easiest bad habit to change, not the hardest. This will give the best chance of success. Decide on the best way for you to change your habit. Worry too much? Set a time to worry and then stop. You may have to stop yourself several times at the beginning but keep it up and you will worry less. Or, alternatively, write the worry down as well as options to stop the problem. Just figure out which way to stop is best for you.